


there's a wind alive in the valley

by jonphaedrus



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, American Civil War, Canon Disabled Character, Goodbye Sex, Graphic Description, Grey/Grey Morality, Gun Violence, Gunshot Wounds, Hand Jobs, Historical Accuracy, M/M, Major Character Injury, Native American Character(s), Not Canon Compliant, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prosthesis, Racial slurs, Smoking, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-23 04:52:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6105496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Qrow Branwen. Even at it’s best, a very bad Christian name. His father, supposedly, had been a Welshman gone West to discover the true meaning of the American dream, and had met a Cheyenne woman, married her, and never left. Two children produced from the union: Raven and Qrow, or at least, as they’re known in English. He’s got a three-thousand dollar price on his head, and James is out to finish what men other than him have started: he will bring Qrow Branwen to the hangman’s noose, no two ways about it.</p><p>James wants that money.</p><p>No hard feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ironqrow skypechat + westerns homework = western au. this is turning out a lot longer than i thought it would be, so we're getting chapters.
> 
> title from [thus always to tyrants](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf41caY8VVI) by the oh hellos

The Marshall in Beacon smiles too much, James decides his first day in town. The man wears all green, and a pair of tinted glasses under his hat, tilted back to show messy grey hair. 

“I didn’t know a man past sixty could even be Marshall,” James says, when he steps into the man’s office. He just keeps smiling. 

“How do you know I’m past sixty?”

James doesn’t. 

As it turns out, there’s much he doesn’t know.

 

 

 _Qrow Branwen_. Even at it’s best, a very bad Christian name. His father, supposedly, had been a Welshman gone West to discover the true meaning of the American dream, and had met a Cheyenne woman, married her, and never left. Two children produced from the union: Raven and Qrow, or at least, as they’re known in English.

Aside from that, there’s nothing on the man until he robbed a train and killed four guards, ten years previous. That was when he started coming to the attention of the authorities. His sister helped, but Raven Branwen is either dead or so long-vanished no bounty hunter will ever find her, no matter how much they look. The War Between the States swallowed her up, vanished her off the map, and she doesn’t seem like to come back. 

Qrow has come back. Qrow always seems to come back. He’s got a three-thousand dollar price on his head, and James is out to finish what men other than him have started: he will bring Qrow Branwen to the hangman’s noose, no two ways about it.

He wants that money. No hard feelings.

“I hear Qrow Branwen has been through this town,” James says, his fifth day in Beacon, and the Marshall shrugs. He’s so far not heard the man called anything but _Oz_ , including by his wife, a pretty woman not much younger than James himself. “At least, that was the rumour back in St. Louis.”

“If you believe every rumour you hear in St. Louis, Mr. Ironwood, then you’ll be apt to believe I’m immortal.” Oz smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “If you want to find Qrow, you’ll get no answers out of me. You’d best mount that horse, and ride.”

James grinds his teeth.

 

 

The waitress at the saloon has the thickest bunch of yellow hair James has ever seen. It’s coarser than any other blonde he’s ever met, and her dark skin and oddly-lidded eyes out her: she’s half native. She won’t meet his eyes until James sits down at the bar, folds his hands, the metal fingers of his right hand pinching his left even through the leather of his glove.

“What tribe are you?”

She looks up at him, her pale-brown eyes wide. There’s something Eastern in her, too—Chinese, maybe.

“Um,” she says, and then adds, “Cheyenne. My mother.” James nods, thoughtful, and lowers his left hand into his duster pocket, pulls out his billfold, and unfolds a few bills, sets them on the counter. Her eyes get wide as he places his metal hand on top of it. Doesn’t move.

“There’s not like to be a great many Cheyenne families in this area.” James’ voice is pitched low. She doesn’t break eye contact. “What do you know about Qrow Branwen?” Her face blanches, but it’s too late: he’s seen it. 

“I don’t know—“

“Young lady, you may as well tell me, because I promise if you don’t I will find a way to make you that won’t involve money.” She clenches her jaw.

“Try it.”

For a moment, he sees in her face Penny’s wide green eyes and hears her frightened voice as the Confederates had broken into the house. He bites down, hard. Breathes past it.

“Very well.”

 

 

Qrow eases up in his saddle, pushing back his dark hat off of his face as Ruby, next to him, settles her mare. Zwei, between his thighs, nickers softly. “Yeah,” Qrow mutters, voice dark, “I’m feeling the same thing.”

Ruby looks as tired as he feels—her face is wild from days on the trail, her thick, dark hair badly mussed despite her hat. “He said he’d be waiting in the saloon for you,” she says, her pale eyes narrowed. “I don’t like this.”

“You and me both, kiddo.” Zwei nickers again, and Qrow checks his holsters, both loaded. “I’m going in alone. You stay back, outside the building.”

“She’s my sister—“

“Ruby! If he’ll kidnap one girl, I’m not taking any chances with two.” She quails under his glare, and sinks back down in her saddle. He hesitates. “I got one of my girls hurt,” he murmurs, setting his hand on her shoulder, “I am sure as hell not going to put the other one in danger. Come into town, but stay outside the building. If things go bad, I want you to get Yang and get the _hell_ out of there.”

“Fine.” She doesn’t push it any more than that, and he kicks Zwei back into a gallop, running down toward the town. Things are going regular within, and it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary on the streets. He stops in front of the Marshall’s office, and leaves Zwei with Ruby as he ducks inside.

“Qrow, my darling boy, how long it has been.” Ozpin smiles too much, and Qrow is in no mood for it. He kicks the older man’s legs off of where he has them propped on his desk and shoves a finger into his chest.

“You let some _jackass_ kidnap my niece.” It’s the first time he’s spoken English in weeks, and his tongue is sloppy on the letters. Oz shakes his head, sighs, tilts his hat back. 

“To be totally fair, Qrow, she did goad him into it. He hasn’t hurt her, and has more than anything acted as a guardian. Frankly, I think if it didn’t work, he would have let her go before too much longer.” Qrow snarls. 

“Bullshit.”

“You have it coming, Qrow. Be reasonable.” Ozpin sighs, overdramatically. “He seems nice enough, for a bounty hunter. I couldn’t keep them off your trail forever.” Qrow wants to punch him— _nice enough_. Only Ozpin would judge the man after Qrow’s neck in a noose on whether he was nice _enough_. Seems to him, the _nice enough_ definition ceased to apply after the man had decided to kidnap his niece.

“I’ve been killing those men for _you_. If one of us is going to hang, it should be you instead of me.”

“Well, the idiots in the East don’t seem to understand just how complex it is out here in the roughs.” Oz lies more than anybody Qrow has ever met, and it gets _old_.

“So you’ll sell me to the hangman?”

“Please,” Ozpin’s voice is so affable that Qrow wants to punch him. His palm fists, and he has to consciously let it go, untense. “Like I would ever let you hang.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Qrow snarls, and storms out, hops back into Zwei, and launches himself across town to the saloon, Zwei kicking up dust and Ruby shouting after him as he comes to the porch, ties the gelding to the post outside, and storms in.

It’s not empty. Things go on, despite bounties and Marshalls, and plenty of people are there at midafternoon getting a drink. At the bar, Yang is still working, but she’s on-edge, keeps glancing over at the end of the bar where a man is sitting. He’s pulled up a chair, and Qrow sees immediately why she keeps glancing over.

He’s disgustingly tall—must be the same as Ozpin, judging how much of him spills out of the chair he’s seated in. He’s twice as wide as well, and it makes him seem even larger for it. His dark hair is streaked grey at the temples, and he’s wearing a pair of reading glasses. He’s wearing a white suit, and a glove on one hand, reading a newspaper.

He’s got a rifle in his lap, pointed at Yang. Qrow hates him on sight.

“Hey!” He shouts, and the saloon freezes. “If you aren’t the guy who fucked with my kid, get the hell out of here.” There’s a moment of silence as the man at the bar turns his newspaper page with his left hand, still holding it in his right, and then most of the townsfolk clear out real fast, leaving Qrow alone with the man and Yang.

“Uncle Qrow!” Yang is staring at him like he makes the sun come up in the morning. Qrow puts his hand on his pistol. “You shouldn’t have come!”

“He did, though.” The man at the bar has a voice as deep as thunder rumble, but he doesn’t look up. “You’d best take your hand off your gun, now.”

“Oh, like you’re gonna—“ the man’s hand moves, and Yang shouts in surprise as one of the bottles over her head shatters, spewing beer over her hair and the shelf. The man is holding a heavy repeating revolver in his left hand.

Qrow didn’t even see him draw.

He takes his hand off of his pistol.

“Come in and take a seat, please.” The man gestures and Qrow does it, real nice and slow, settling by the bar. He can hear Yang’s ragged breathing. “Pistols on the counter.” He takes the two in his side holsters, and the man still doesn’t look up from his newspaper.

Qrow hesitates, and adds the one shoved in the back of his trousers, as well as the two holstered under his arms.

“Knives,” the man says, and Qrow takes both hunting knives out of his boots, as well as the thick nasty bowie knife he keeps sheathed on his thigh, and the set of throwing daggers up his sleeve. “Please put the two-shot in your boot up, as well.”

“It’s a one-shot,” Qrow snaps back, trying to regain some form of his control, but the man still doesn’t look up.

“On the counter.”

He does so. 

“All right, Yang.” The man closes his newspaper and looks up, and Qrow is struck by how blue his eyes are—they’re as dark as deep water, and just as pure. “You can go. I’ll leave the money for the beer.”

“Hey,” Yang practically sprints for the door, “Fuck you, Ironwood!” His expression doesn’t shake, and once she’s gone, he closes the newspaper, tucks it under his right arm, and points his rifle at Qrow.

“Qrow Branwen...you’re older than I thought you’d be.” Qrow bares his teeth. He’s forty now, but this man can’t be more than a handful of years older. “Niece?” 

“Raven’s girl.”

“Ah.” Neither of them say anything for a long moment. “I’m not going to shoot you, if you behave. I expect you to hang for your crimes, not get shot. We’ll walk you back over to the Marshall’s office, and put you in a cell. I’ll take your guns.”

“What, you aren’t going to kill me and drag my body in that way?”

“The legal system works as it does for a reason,” the man replies, rifle not wavering. “I have no personal stake in you dying, and I’ll let the legal courts decide whether you need the noose.”

“Oh,” Qrow smiles with all his teeth, grim. “I’m gonna hang.”

“You might want to tell your girls to get out of town, then.” The man gestures with his rifle. “Go right ahead. I’ll shoot you if you run.”

Qrow doesn’t move.

“They can handle themselves, thanks.” The man raises his eyebrows.

“Very well.”

He slings himself to his feet, and tucks his rifle into his right arm alongside the newspaper, gathers up the weapons Qrow has left on the counter and slides them into pockets and his boots, then gestures out of the saloon. “Your decision.” 

Qrow goes. 

The man follows after, limping heavily on his right side, never moving his right arm.

 

 

As it turns out, Beacon doesn’t have a hangman. “You’ll have to send to the next town over,” Oz replies, flipping one of Qrow’s knives in the air. “It should take a week or two for Vale to set a trial date for him.”

“And until then?” James growls. Qrow is laying, sprawled and comfortable, in the jail cell.

“Well, he can wait.” Oz tosses the knife and it thuds into the wall from which wanted bills hang, pinning Qrow’s bill up. “I suppose you’ll be wanting that money now, then?”

“Yes.” Ozpin leaves, humming, and goes to retrieve the money. He comes back eventually, and counts the three thousand out to James, who takes it stoically, slides it into his billfold, and slides his billfold deep into his inner shirt pocket. “I’ll be staying until the trial.”

“You can do whatever you want to, I don’t care in the slightest.” Oz waves a hand. “Just don’t harass his girls, they’re good kids.”

“Ever seen a man hang, Jimmy?” Qrow calls from the cell. He got James’ name from Oz, and he wishes the Marshall hadn’t let it slip. “Seen his feet kick? You going to get a trill? You want to laugh, at the Qrow flying?”

James doesn’t say anything.

Thinks about the war.

Leaves.

 

 

Vale doesn’t end up sending a jury or a hangman.

It sends an angry girl with a bone to pick and a good deal of whiskey and matches, and Beacon _burns_. 

Qrow ends up busting himself out of the cell—he could have earlier, but expected Oz to do it for him. Instead, Oz vanished a week before, and Qrow hasn’t seen him since. He’s halfway through ransacking the burning building looking for his weapons when Glynda stumbles in, ash on her face and in her hair. 

“Where’s Oz?” Qrow shouts, and she drags him out of the building, both of them coughing. He wants a drink. 

“I don’t know!” There are tears in Glynda’s eyes. “I thought you might!”

“He didn’t say!” They stumble into the street, smoke choking their eyes and lungs, and moments later, Jimmy rounds the corner, holding his gun right-handed and shoving in a clean set of rounds with his left, limping heavily. He’s wearing a cavalry sabre at his right side, and Qrow realises for the first time the man must have been in the War.

He looks between Qrow and Glynda, and clearly makes a decision then and there. He reaches down into his boot and pulls out one of Qrow’s revolvers and his hunting knife, and tosses them both over.

Qrow cocks his revolver, points it at the man. 

“They got your niece,” James says. 

Qrow goes cold.

“Which one?”

“Both. Yang went down trying to get Ruby back. She’s alive, but it’s bad. They rode off with Ruby.” James hesitates, and then Qrow lowers the gun, spits in his palm, sticks out his hand. Beacon burns about them, and then James groans, spits in his left hand, and awkwardly grips Qrow’s in reverse.

“Truce?”

“Fine.”

There’s no particular reason either of them should particularly hate each other, but for the whole kidnapping Yang thing, but Oz is gone and without him there, they have big shoes to fill. “Come on,” James says, gesturing Qrow after him. “She won’t let me near her. You have to make her.”

“Why should I?” 

“They took off her arm at the elbow.”

Qrow. 

Feels like someone just cut him open inside and left the remains to spill on the ground.

He follows faster.

 

 

“Get away from me!” Yang screeches, holding the bloody stump of her arm, as James comes over. She’s crouched in the dirt in front of the burning saloon, and James grunts, fishes left-handed in his duster’s pockets and pulls out a length of bandages.

“What are _you_ going to do?” Qrow’s voice is more hysterical than he means it to, and James grunts, sliding his pistol back into his holster. 

“I was an army doctor. This isn’t the first amputation I’ve seen, although they’re rarely this clean.” 

Oh. 

Qrow crouches by Yang, checks her eyes—she’s hysterical, but still with them. “Let him,” Qrow murmurs, and she shakes her head, trembling all over. “Yang, you have to.”

“He’s going to get you hanged.” She’s wailing, tears in her eyes, and he has to squeeze her shoulders, make her focus on him and not on herself.

“I’d rather you not die before it happens.” Yang hesitates a moment longer, then holds out the stump of her arm and James leans forward and quickly one-handed knots the bandage around her bicep and pulls _tight_ , so tight that he hears Yang gasp in pain, and then James stands up, draws his sabre, walks over to the burning saloon, and holds the blade in it until Qrow can see it getting red-hot. James glances over his shoulder at Qrow, who freezes, Yang slumping in his arms.

“This is the part where you’re going to want to look away,” James says, voice quiet.

Qrow bites the inside of his lip, fishes in his pocket until he comes up with the stick he was whittling in the cell, and shoves it into Yang’s mouth, the girl gasping and trying to reach to pull it out. “Don’t,” he whispers.

She closes her eyes.

He turns away.

The smell of smoke and sizzling flesh hits him, just before Yang starts screaming, biting down, her nails digging bloody marks into the side of his neck. Qrow tries to breathe, not to think about her screaming in his ear, her crying. How much it has to hurt. He can hear James saying something, low and quiet, and before long the worst of it is over.

Until they put the hangman’s noose about his neck, he’ll have nightmares of this, he knows. The scent of blood and charred flesh. The crackle of flames, the scream of a teenage girl in his ear, begging him to _make it stop_. He won’t be able to make it stop. She’ll always be there, like this. From now on, he’ll never have peace from it. 

Yang is collapsed in his arms by the end of it, and he pulls the stick out of her mouth, tosses it on the ground, even as James reaches up to check her pulse.

“She’s just passed out,” the other man says, at last, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet, shaking off his sabre and sliding it back into its sheath, the metal cooled from its job cauterising the wound shut. “She should live, if it doesn’t infect.”

“Should,” Qrow whispers, voice cracking, but he still stumbles upward, grabs his niece under the arms, picks her up. It’s like she’s a little kid again, collapsed on his shoulder, snoring. Only she’s up to his shoulder, and heavy as hell. He almost overbalances, but then hikes her onto his back. “ _Should_ is a hell of a gamble, Jimmy.”

“It’s either _should_ or we let her bleed out into the dirt.” His voice is tight. “Come on.”

Glynda takes Yang’s unconscious body from Qrow’s arms, and they leave her with the townsfolk. Qrow takes all of his weapons back from where James has been hanging onto them, and they ride out into the night side-by-side, horses kicked into a gallop.

“They were from Vale!” James shouts, holding his reigns left-handed. “Chances are, they’ll go back!”

“Ruby will have left a trail, if she’s conscious!” Qrow knows she would—she’s a smart goddam girl, and he’s taught her everything he knows. “We need to start searching.” Ironwood reins his horse to a stop, and settles back in the saddle. 

“Split up,” he says. “Meet back here at dawn. If either of us find anything obvious, we report it then. If not, we head for Vale.”

“How do you know I’m not about to run away?” Qrow waggles his eyebrows at the other man, who snorts.

“I’ve been paid for you, Qrow. If you escape now and leave your niece to whatever fate awaits her, then you really do deserve the hangman’s noose.” 

It tastes sooty and vile in his mouth, but they split apart. The night sky is dark even with its spangle of stars and the lights of Beacon burning below, and Qrow wants this nightmare to be over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ozpin is casually resting on a rock, smoking, his horse grazing contently on some grass. His right arm is in a sling, and he's got bandages about his face. He smiles at James, and it's...unsettling. To say the least. The blood matting his grey hair doesn’t help. "Well, General," he sucks a long drag on his cigarette, burning it to cinders, and crushes it out in the dirt. "I had no idea you were such a good shot."

“Daddy,” Penny’s voice in his memories was always her voice when she was six-and-a-half, when her first tooth fell out and she wore a green bow in her red, red hair. “Which one is the big and which one is the Little Dipper?”

“Well,” James had said, crouching by her side, squatting to be on the same level as his little girl, “Polaris is the brightest star in the sky, and it’s at the tip of the Little Dipper. See how it’s right there, pointing north? It always points north. That’s how you can tell them apart.”

“Huh.” She had chewed her lip, a habit she never lost, and fisted her hands in her green gingham apron. “That’s real helpful if you get lost, though!”

“You bet it is,” James had told her, his fingers when he still had a right hand tangled in her curls. “You’ll always be able to use it to find your way home.”

Home.

 

 

They find nothing of a trail that first night, and set off toward Vale. Halfway through the second day of riding, the first sign of a trail appears at last, and Qrow drags his gelding over to a bush, crouching over, pulling back with a bit of red ribbon in his hand.

“This was on her sleeve.” He turns it back and forth, one brown eye narrowed. “It’s not too dirty either, so this was recent or they’re keeping her clean.” Qrow tucks it into a pocket and slips down out of his horse’s saddle, and James just stays where he is, leaning on his right hand, watching with a keen eye as Qrow begins to scout carefully.

He’s got a trained tracker’s eye, clearly. Came from his family, maybe, or his years on the run—whatever. James has heard about the Natives and their tracking skills: maybe it’s true. Himself, he can stitch a gunshot wound six ways to Sunday and blast a man’s head at two hundred paces, but he can’t tell what’s in the dirt for shit.

“We’re near to them, maybe half a day behind. They gained on us while we were lost last night.” Qrow frowns, looking out over the scrubland, rubbing his forehead under his hat. “If we keep up this pace and their tracks stay obvious, we’ll catch them maybe this afternoon. They’re moving slower than we are, probably from carting Ruby around. Looks like there’s three horses.”

“They’re not heading for Vale any more,” James says, musing as Qrow mounts back up. “They’re veering off, skirting around the city.” 

“Haven’s the next city past Vale.” Qrow shakes his head. “Different county, further on. They’re trying to get around the city and still make good time, keep ahead of anyone pursuing. They’ll be outside of a good bit of the justice that could be directed at them, if they make it that far.”

“Then we’d best catch them before they get to where they’re headed.” James doesn’t relish the thought of having to deal with catching the arsonist the next county over. Qrow nods, and he kicks Zwei onward, Ironwood staying in his shadow. With only one horse each they can’t over-push themselves or their mounts, but they’re making damn good time despite it.

“They aren’t even bothering to cover their tracks,” Qrow says, a half an hour on, the sun beginning to beat down on their heads as it rises in the cloudless Montana sky. “I don’t think they know we’re following.”

“Then we have an advantage.”

The land shifts, turning from flatland into hills, lifting their path up to give them a bird’s-eye view of the plains for miles around. Below them, James can see Vale a few miles off—it’s bigger than Beacon by about three times, and has a railway station half-built running into it. Progress, ever marching on.

As he’s watching, he sees three horses, suddenly. Below them, at the bottom of the rise, switchbacking to get back to flat ground. “Qrow!” The other man spins around in the saddle and James points, both of them reining up, James pulling his rifle out of where it’s hanging off his saddle, and bends his right arm to hold the stock, pressing it against his right shoulder to take the kick. He’s a better shot now with his left than he ever was with his right—it makes him wonder what he’d be like if he’d kept the arm.

“Closer than I thought—“ the other man murmurs, and James squints one eye, tracking the trio of horses. He can’t see details from this distance, but he can see here and there. The arsonist herself—he’d seen her in Beacon, as she dragged Ruby away. She’s in front, taking point, riding a dun-coloured mare. 

“She brought friends,” James says at last, and grimaces. Behind her is another girl, green bonnet waving in the wind, and a young man who is carrying Ruby, trussed and tossed over his shoulder. He’d seen the girl in the bonnet in Beacon as well—she’d been the one to slice Yang’s arm off with the deadly-sharp knives tucked over her back, the blades of which he can see glinting in the sunlight. The man is a stranger, but was probably their mole in town, just waiting for their Marshall to run off to...wherever it was Ozpin had vanished. “I’m taking them down.”

“No!” Qrow shouts, trying to reach over to smack the rifle out of James’ hand, James jerking backward, his horse prancing nervously at the motion. “You’ll shoot Ruby!” 

“Get _off_.” James shakes his head, lines up the shot. He can’t shoot to kill on the man who is holding Ruby, and if he takes out the horse, Ruby could be crushed and trampled. Qrow grabs for him again. “Qrow!” James shouts, barely glancing at the other man. “I have the shot and I’m _taking_ it.” Qrow freezes next to him, and James focuses. Breathes.

He takes his first shot and hits the man in the hip. He doubles over, almost dropping Ruby, who gets flung to the woman who took off Yang’s arm, and as soon as she’s off the horse James fires again, the bullet taking the woman with the bonnet in the shoulder, Ruby still flat over the back of her saddle. He jerks the rifle open, shells flying out, and he slams two clean ones in left-handed. He’s sighting again immediately, only to shout in surprise as there’s the whistle of an arrow bolt, fired by their wayward arsonist, and it hits James in the right shoulder, embedding in the strap that holds his metal arm on. “You wish,” he snarls, more annoyed than anything (at this distance, the arrowhead didn’t even pierce the leather all the way through) and now that the man who he took hard in the hip isn’t holding Ruby, James takes two quick shots, striking his horse in the back legs, aiming for the knees.

The horse and the man both go down, and James pops out the empty rifle shells as the two women press on, pushing their horses to a gallop. There’s no way James and Qrow can catch them. However, the man who has dragged himself from his downed horse, struggling to hang onto the arsonist, his fingers wrapped around the bottom of her stirrup...

James lowers the rifle, smiles grimly. 

They’ll be moving a lot slower now. And a bloody man hanging off the saddle leaves quite the trail, if they don’t dump him for dead weight. 

“Let’s go see what we can get off of the downed horse,” he says, reaching up and snapping the shaft of the arrow off on the outside of his duster, before he lifts it and pops the top button of his shirt to slide his hand in and wrench the head of the arrow out of the heavy leather straps wrapped around his shoulder. “Should have something useful." 

Qrow is staring at him with wide eyes, shakes his head after a moment.

“There goes our surprise.”

“Blood leaves a remarkably helpful trail, as do two horses carrying four riders.” Qrow scowls, but presses on, not pushing the issue.

 

 

They put the horse out of its misery.

Qrow dismounts after it's done, James staying in the saddle and cleaning his rifle one-handed, watching the other man. "There's shitall in here," Qrow snarls, digging through the stuff that had been in the saddlebags, James staying alert in case the three of them decide to swing back around. "I don't know how they think they can reach Haven, if the other two are like this."

"What's in there?" James is focused on his rifle, getting the powder out of the barrels, but glances over as Qrow shrugs one shoulder. 

“Maps, keys...couple of boxes of ammo,” he tosses them over his shoulder and James catches them awkwardly out of the air, grimacing at the pull on having to compensate for no right hand, and sticks them into his saddlebags, keeping them for later. "Bunch of junk...oh, some whiskey—" James pretends not to look when Qrow pockets it, "And almost no food." Qrow scratches the back of his head under his hat, and looks up at James. "It's a two day ride to Haven. What do they think they're going to do, with no food or canteens?" 

"What are _we_ going to do?" James points out, sliding his rifle back into its holster next to his saddle. "That's the more important question." Tapping back the brim of his hat, he picks out the fairly obvious trail that the bandits left, blood and two horses each burdened with two riders not exactly _subtle_. "We might want to turn back, or at least run through Vale. I don't like the idea of having to let them get away any more than you do, but we aren't exactly equipped for a ride that long." James had been hoping to catch them before they got to Vale—now, they could be going a lot further. 

"Waste of time." Qrow doesn't look up, continues scrabbling about in the saddlebags, and rescues the maps, then adds to his collection some jerky and a box of matches.

Arsonists. Right.

Standing up, Qrow stuffs the lot into his own saddlebags, and then mounts back up, looking toward Haven in the distance. "You ever gone hungry, Jimmy-boy?"

James thinks of soot and screams and the ashes and blood of battle. He thinks of gruel and infection fever sweats and begging for death. He thinks of the squalor of war camps and the stink of mass graves and the pain where his hand should be.

"Don't ever ask me that again," he says instead, and Qrow laughs mirthlessly as they ride on together, following the obvious path as long as the blood is there to follow, and after, picking their way along based on hoofprints and broken brush.

 

 

The sun sets, and as the last dregs of twilight leave the sky purple and cloud-scudded, James reins up and scowls at the man sitting in front of them. They're maybe three hours out from Vale now, and here he is—like it's the most sensible thing in the world.

Ozpin is casually resting on a rock, smoking, his horse grazing contently on some grass. His right arm is in a sling, and he's got bandages about his face. He smiles at James, and it's...unsettling. To say the least. The blood matting his grey hair doesn’t help. "Well, _General_ ," he sucks a long drag on his cigarette, burning it to cinders, and crushes it out in the dirt. "I had no idea you were such a good shot."

"You saw that, huh?" James manages at last, teeth grit. He doesn't look away from Ozpin's face.

"One couldn't help but notice." Ozpin shrugs with his good arm. "It was quite impressive, to say the least. It's amazing what the army does to a man."

"General?" Qrow does an about-face in his saddle, looks at James in surprise.

"Fuck off," James snarls, and if he were a caged animal, this is where he'd bite. Qrow raises his eyebrows and makes a face.

He says something in a language James doesn't recognise. "Who put a bug up your ass..." he settles for in English after a moment, and Ozpin stretches and mounts up on his horse.

"No need to worry about returning to Vale, General." And that's it, James is going to punch him, Marshall and injured or no. "Unlike some people, I happened to come prepared." Ozpin hesitates, getting his reins into his uninjured hand, and admits after a moment longer, "It's all hardtack, but I assumed you would take what you could get."

"Come on," Qrow snaps at last, kicking his horse on. "We'll have to stop when it gets dark. I want a solid lead on them by then."

  

 

Montana is nothing like the east. Back home, when it gets to be night, there's always a little bit of light, bleeding in at the edges of the horizon, from the cities. It smells like industry and old dirt and blood, and whenever he's east, he can't stop thinking.

Out here, the sky stretches further than it seems it should, like the world is rimless, like if you stare too long you'll trip and fly up into it. There are more stars than James ever knew existed, and if Penny was still around—

He tries not to think about it too much.

 

  

James cooks the two rabbits that Qrow somehow manages to catch, and sits there with his metal arm in his lap and his screwdriver tucked in his mouth, doing routine maintenance, and tries not to listen to what's going on across the campfire. It's hard, but mostly because Qrow is really loud. Whatever Ozpin is doing, it's got the other man gasping, and James just grits his teeth and ignores it by sheer force of will. In the army, he got what little propriety he had left beaten out of him—this was one of those things he'd had to learn to let go of. 

If they want to get up to this on their own time, who is he to stop them?

When Qrow and Oz emerge from their furtive scuffling about in the bedroll, James glares, but otherwise says nothing as he hooks his metal arm back onto his shoulder, adjusting the straps around his neck and chest by habit, then twisting it back and forth to make sure everything is working right.

"What," Qrow says, as he rescues the rabbits from the fire and starts slicing them up for the three men to share, "Not going to do something about sodomy?" He looks up, brown eyes crafty. "That's illegal."

"Frankly," James points out, satisfied with his arm and taking it off for the night before he pulls his shirt back on, hiding the scars that litter his chest, and buttons it closed once again. "Considering my only interest in you as a lawman was to get the bounty on your head, not whether or not you hang, and that the very man that _paid me_ for your arrest is the man who just sucked your dick while I listened, I don't really think that arresting you again would serve any real point." He hesitates. "I'm pretty sure you can just trade sexual favours to get out of jail.

"I'm insulted," Ozpin says, and his voice is hoarse—James makes a face, the reason for it clear enough. "I would never let him out of jail for sexual favours, that’s a horrible reputation to gain. For one thing, can you imagine my wife's face?" He grins, and for once, it actually reaches his eyes. "She'd be furious I didn't do it for free."

James goes to have a cigarette.

 

 

Eventually, footsteps come over, and James looks up, halfway through his second cigarette, to find Qrow awkwardly standing there. After a moment, the other man crouches down next to him and flops onto the grass, twisting the blades between his fingers.

"Sorry about earlier," he says at last, and James shrugs, runs fingers through his hair.

"It honestly doesn't bother me. I was in the War—comparatively, this is no big deal." He hesitates, and then adds, "Besides which, I've seen the list of things they put on your wanted bill. Sodomy wouldn't exactly make it any worse."

"Don't tell my girls," Qrow whispers. "They don't know." James takes a few drags on his cigarette.

"Thought you said Yang was your niece."

"I raised her. Ruby, too." Qrow sighs. "Raven's been gone a long time, someone had to step into her shoes. Taiyang was never a great father, either."

"They both Raven's?" James looks at Qrow. He'd only seen Ruby for a bit in Beacon, but she'd clearly not had Qrow's colouring—she had fair skin, and grey eyes. Not her uncle’s sun-bronzed skin, rounded nose, and eyes the same colour as fresh-hewn soil. 

"Just Yang. Her father remarried, after my sister went..." Qrow gestures out at the plains, as if the great yawning silence of the West can answer the question for him. "Wherever it is Raven went. When Ruby's mother died, Taiyang basically gave up on the girls. They were mine, after that."

"They're good kids," James finds himself having to admit. "You did well." Qrow snorts, smiles at him—the look on his face takes off a few years, softens the lines in his skin.

"Thanks."

They sit in silence for a bit, until James reaches into his pockets and pulls out his cigarette paper. "You want one?" He asks, one eyebrow raised, and Qrow shakes his head, waves a hand.

"Don't smoke. Ruby hates the smell of it. Doesn't bother me, if you want to, though." James hesitates—Penny had _hated_ the stench of tobacco—and then slides the paper back in his pocket.

"Two's enough," he says, eventually, like that answers the empty questions that prod at his soul. The stars wheel and they breathe.

"Speaking of two's enough..." Qrow says at last. "Look." James glances over at the other man, and finds Qrow won't meet his eyes, staring off into the distance instead. With the firelight flickering over his back, he doesn't look quite entirely human, his dark skin spangled in the blue glow of starlight, his dark hair licked with flame. "You don't have to come with Oz and me. You've been nice enough to help so far, but I am a wanted man, and it's bad enough Oz is running with me. Thank you for your help with Yang, and thank you for trying to get Ruby back, but...this isn't your fight." Qrow scrubs a hand through his hair. "Lord knows Glynda probably needs a hand in Beacon, right now."

James looks at him, and then pushes himself to his feet. "I'll come," he says, wobbling for a moment as his bad leg takes his balance back. Qrow looks at him, like he wants to ask—but doesn't dare. "I only wish someone had been willing to help me when they took my girl."

The look of swift, sharp pain on Qrow's face says enough. He gets it.

"I'm sorry," he says at last. James shrugs, slides his hand in his pocket.

"Can't bring back the dead, Qrow. Can only help the living. I'll help you get Ruby back in one piece, and then if you still want to get your ass tossed back in jail for sodomy or what-have-you, I'll drag you into Vale myself." Qrow smiles, mostly teeth. 

James goes back to his bedroll and eats his share of dinner in silence. Afterward, he shoves his arm in next to him, and falls asleep some time later to the sound of what seems to be enthusiastic fucking across the fire.

He could go.

Penny would want him to stay.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then, Qrow reaches out and grabs either side of his face, drags James down, and kisses him hard on the mouth. He holds very still in surprise, and then wraps his good hand around the back of Qrow’s head, pulls him closer, presses their foreheads together.
> 
> This is a bad idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "thisll be 6k and three chapters" i say a week and a half later "i guess 5 chapters is okay", rip me

They wake up at false dawn, the wan grey light washing out the beauty of the plains, flattening everything so it seems like the landscape goes on forever, no matter how far you ride. Qrow stamps out the last of the fire coals as James puts his arm back on, and eventually they all mount up together, pausing for Ozpin to fumble, first struggling to get into his saddle one-armed, and then failing to get his cigarette lit one-handed.

It takes James three tries to get onto his horse, and by the end of it, he’s in a foul mood and his bad leg aches. Ozpin finally has his cigarette lit, and he takes a few drags as James makes sure his rifle is settled in its holster, shifts his arm to be more comfortable.

“How’d you lose it?” Qrow asks, before they set out. James glances over at him, and the other man is leaned comfortably on his saddle, sharp brown eyes watching. Curiosity killed the crow—or the cat.

“Grapeshot,” James says at last, shifting to grip his mare’s reins. “Nearly lost the leg too.” His voice is hard as steel, and clearly says one thing alone: topic is closed.

Qrow, for once wisely, doesn’t push it.

They ride.

 

 

In the end, they don’t go toward Haven. The trail turns northwest, and they follow. It’s late that afternoon when they find the boy, leaned back against a rock, gun in one hand. The first shot goes wide, Ozpin ducking, and James has his pistol out before the shot has finished ringing out, fires once. The bullet sends up a puff of dust and dirt between the boy’s thighs, and he freezes, staring down. 

“The next one,” James says, slow and steady, “Is going to go a few inches higher. Drop the gun.”

“Jesus,” the boy drops the gun. He’s got one hand clasped over his hip from where James shot him once before outside Vale, and blood stains his side. “You’re a fucking nightmare. I don’t want any more lead in me.

“Smart lad.” James settles further in his saddle. Qrow spits in the dirt. For a long moment none of them move, then Qrow tips his hat back. 

“Where’d they go.” The boy glances to James, who doesn’t move. He gulps.

“I don’t know.” It’s a bald-faced lie, and what’s worse, not even a good one.

“If I shoot you in the balls, you’ve got probably ten minutes to live.” James raises his eyebrows, and lifts his gun. “Want to test me?”

“No, Sir.”

“Then you’ll talk to my companion, and I won’t put a bullet between your legs.”

Qrow leans further forward in his saddle. “Where. Did they go.” The boy looks to James again, and then takes a shaking breath. “I’m tired of riding, and you kidnapped my _goddam_ niece. Don’t fucking test me, kid.” The boy is clearly exhausted, and if the wound on his side isn’t already infected, it will be soon. At this point, James isn’t sure if it’s possible for him to get any more scared.

“They’re heading toward Mistral, to meet up with our employer. I don’t know what they’re going to do with the girl. They left me here for dead weight.” He swallows, shaking. “I’m going to die anyway, don’t make it worse.” 

“What’s your name?” Qrow asks next, and the boy responds immediately—

“Marcus Black,” and a hesitant moment later, “Sir.”

“You’re not Marcus Black,” Ozpin suddenly pipes up, looking down at the boy and away from whatever two square inches of sky he’s been studying. “Marcus Black was turned in to me for a two hundred dollar bounty three years ago. So, unless you’re somehow back from the dead and, oh, thirty years older, I think not.” The boy shifts again, and this time James fires about half a foot from the side of his head, making him jump nearly out of his skin as rock chips scatter over his face.

“Mercury!” His voice cracks. “Mercury Black! Marcus was my father!” He’s shaking all over now, and if James wasn’t furious, he’d almost have some sympathy. He can’t be all that much older than Yang and Ruby, and if his friends left him for dead weight...that just says he’s not as important to the cause as he thought he was. “That’s all I know—they’re meeting Salem in Mistral and I haven’t got any idea why Cinder has the girl!”

Ozpin hums, thoughtfully. “I would really like the chance to finish what Salem and I started,” he says at last, and then nods to James. “Let him be. He’s telling the truth.” James leans back in his saddle.

“I say we leave him here to die,” Qrow snarls, and James twitches out his good leg to jab the other man in the ankle. “It’s the _least_ he deserves.

“No, Qrow.” Qrow subsides slightly, but is still glaring daggers, and James digs in his saddle until he finds a flare, and tosses it to the boy, who almost drops it, before James tosses over a few matches. “You’re a few hours outside Haven,” James tells him, leaning on his saddle horn, watching him very carefully. “If you fire that off, you might last long enough for them to get here and drag your sorry ass to see a doctor.”

“We have a long way to go to Mistral,” Ozpin has already started to sidle in his saddle. “I don’t like the idea that they still have Ruby.”

“Me either.” Qrow knocks his hat down his forehead, scowling, and nudges Zwei. “Let’s go.”

The three of them kick their horses on to a gallop and race away. After they’ve left, James looks over his shoulder and sees the flare launch, leaving a long red trail through the clear, afternoon sky. 

He stops worrying about it, and urges his horse on.

 

  

They ride through most of the night, not wasting any time. Without Mercury to weigh them down, their quarry will be going faster. James naps in the saddle off and on when they slow down to a walk, and wakes up every time his horse bumps. The next day they ride as well, stopping only to eat, and James wonders just how far they’re going to end up going. Haven and Vale both are behind them now—north a day or two more and they’ll be at Atlas, and the path is just starting to turn west toward Mistral. The night afterward they’re all exhausted, but they keep pushing, James’ mouth a thin line, Ozpin getting even quieter than usual. 

Even Qrow has stopped talking, no complaints on his lips, too focused on Ruby—still missing. 

It’s not the longest ride that James has ever suffered through, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t exhausted, his bad leg aching from being abused in the saddle. 

It’s late the following night when they see the campfire, burning low on the horizon, and they ride closer near-silently. When they’re near enough to see two horses, James eases his rifle out of its holster and cocks it, keeping the barrel facing up. They halt when they can see the figures at the fireside, and James squints at them, even as Ozpin pulls out a spyglass and fumbles to get it open with one hand, pressing it awkwardly to his face.

Qrow and James sit, quiet, until the Marshall pulls it down, slides it away. Looks at them, nods once.

Qrow turns toward the fire, holding his hat onto his head, and stays still for a moment, before he pulls his revolvers, and checks both are loaded, one in either hand. Ozpin has a shotgun in his hand from somewhere, and James lifts his rifle, settling it into his right shoulder, nudging his horse with his knees.

Qrow cuts a sharp line forward with his hand, and they all go from still to a gallop at once, launching forward. For a moment, James imagines the dust and clamour of battle, firing in the saddle, guiding his horse with his knees, but then they’re in the clear Montana air and he’s not riding along with the cavalry, but with two other men, and not toward massed ranks of grey but toward two criminals who have kidnapped a young girl. 

Penny would be fifteen. Same age as Ruby.

“Shit!” It’s a woman’s voice, low alto, as James gets closer, he can see it’s the arsonist, stumbling out of her bedroll. He snaps up his rifle to take a shot, but his horse shifts and it goes wide, almost clipping her shoulder. She ducks down, and he flattens as fast as he can when she fires a revolver where his head was. There’s the crack of another gun and she’s flat on the ground, then back up just as fast. “They’re after the girl!”

“What?” It’s the girl in the bonnet, who has stumbled out of her own bedroll, and reflexively grabs Ruby—who, like a good girl, shrieks and starts struggling, trying to bite the woman.

“Dump her!” The arsonist shouts, twisting and throwing herself onto her horse. “Not worth it!” The other woman tosses Ruby on the ground, and Qrow throws himself forward, launching off his horse as the girl in the bonnet mounts horseback as well, jerking the reins of her horse up and into her hand. “Run, Emerald!”

“You wish,” James snarls, shifting his rifle. He doesn’t shoot to kill—after the war, he won’t make that decision. After _Penny_ he won’t make that decision. He’s not still enough in his own mind to decide if anyone should live or die—especially not two young girls. Let the judge and jury decide if they deserve to stretch and dance in the hangman’s noose. Instead, he shoots and the bullet takes the girl in the bonnet in the elbow, and she shrieks, before he fires a second one into the back knee of the arsonist’s horse, and they almost go down, but he doesn’t have time to dodge as she twists around and there’s the snap of a bowstring, the arrow launching forward and thudding—this time, into the actual flesh of his bad shoulder.

“Shit,” James almost drops his rifle, biting the inside of his cheek in pain as he reaches and snaps the haft off. Qrow has dismounted and is huddles on the ground next to Ruby as Ozpin puts his horse between the fleeing kidnappers and uncle and niece. James can’t aim with an arrow embedded in his shoulder, so he watches the two ride away. After a moment, he forces his legs off of the saddle and slams, hard, to the ground.

“Ruby,” Qrow has a knife in his hand, and slices the ropes bounding her wrists and ankles, and after a moment she starts to cry, throwing her arms around his neck, and holds tight. He says something muffled in his native tongue, and James winces as he comes over, ignoring the sharp pain in his bad shoulder of the arrowhead, not pulling it out yet–he doesn’t have enough time or bandages to keep the wound from gushing blood without the arrowhead plugging it. Ruby won’t stop crying, and James has to ease her away from Qrow with his good arm.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, checking her pulse. “Let me see.”

“Is she all right?” Qrow asks, his voice pitched low, Ruby’s fingers knotted in the cloth of his jacket. “Ruby,” he turns toward her. “Are you all right?” 

“I’m fine,” she manages after a moment, her throat badly hoarse, barely able to open her mouth. James frowns, lips tight, and fumbles to get his canteen, uncapping it and holding it out for her to take in shaking hands.

“Drink slowly. _Very_ slowly.” She nods, unsteady, and does so, a tiny bit of water at a time. Reaching around her, James feels the back of her head. She seems unbalanced, and he makes a quiet noise when his fingers find a bad lump, sticky with blood. “Have they been feeding you?” Ruby shakes her head, still desperately drinking the water, slowly enough that he doesn’t think she’ll throw up. It’s only been a few days, so she’s likely just badly dehydrated more than anything else, and exhausted to boot.

Also, probably concussed.

Pulling away from Ruby, James makes sure she can sit up on her own, and then grabs Qrow’s arm, struggles to stand, and drags the other man with him over to Ozpin.

“How bad is it, General?” Oz asks, thoughtful, and James shakes his head. Debates telling him to quit it, but then realises he doesn’t have the energy. If he wants to pretend James has anything left of honour or rank, let him.

“Not terrible. She’s mostly uninjured, and what blood loss she has isn’t life-threatening. I’m more worried about her not having enough to eat and drink.” James runs his fingers through his hair, glances off to the north. “I don’t want to drag her as far as Mistral unless we have to, she needs to rest before another four days in the saddle.” Atlas is only half a day, if he keeps good time—Vale, and Beacon, are too far back. “I’ll take her to Atlas. I know some people who can take care of her there, then I’ll circle back around and meet you both in Mistral.”

“James,” Qrow says, voice shaking, and he realises for the first time that the other man has never actually _called_ him James. Just Jimmy, or General. “Will she be all right?”

“She’s going to be fine, Qrow. Exhausted, for a while, but they kept her in one piece. She’ll recover.” Qrow hesitates, and then nods. Then, Qrow reaches out and grabs either side of his face, drags James down, and kisses him _hard_ on the mouth. He holds very still in surprise, and then wraps his good hand around the back of Qrow’s head, pulls him closer, presses their foreheads together.

This is a bad idea.

Ozpin makes a very amused noise. “About time,” he adds, afterward, and James debates punching him in the leg. 

“Take care of her,” Qrow’s voice cracks. “Please.” 

“You can trust me,” James whispers, and _those_ are words he didn’t think he would have said a few days earlier. Qrow nods, at last, and then pulls away, whistles Zwei over, and mounts up. “I’ll see you in Mistral,” he says, and then after a moment of hesitation James flips over his rifle and holds it out to Qrow, who takes it after a long pause, and tucks it under his arm.

“Salem and I have unfinished business,” Ozpin is looking out at the horizon, his expression tight. “Qrow, let’s go.”

“Right behind you.” Both men kick their horses on, and James watches as they thunder after where the two women left, following blood and horse tracks. Instead, James turns back to Ruby, who is looking exhausted as she stares after Qrow, and she perks up slightly when James comes over.

“Come on,” he says at last, offering her his good hand, and helping her carefully to her feet. She wobbles, fingers tight on his duster sleeve, and then rebalances after a moment, letting him cap the canteen. “Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

 

 

It’s just past dawn when James rides into Atlas, Ruby sound asleep against the front of his shoulder, snuffling slightly. With her head bandaged she looks worse than she is, and he takes his time guiding his horse through the city until he reaches the small house tucked in near main street, by the train station, and James slides down out of his saddle, reaches up, and carefully pulls Ruby after him. She mumbles in her sleep, and it’s difficult to get her down with only one arm, but he manages it.

She’s heavy, but no heavier than Penny was, and James carefully tucks her against his shoulder, leaned on his hip. It’s an awkward walk up to the front door of the house, and when he gets there he freezes.

His metal arm is off, strapped to his saddle, his shoulder bandaged and minus the arrowhead. James grimaces, and balances awkwardly on one leg before he kicks the door in lieu of knocking. He does it a second time, and a moment later, the door jerks open, revealing Winter Schnee, her hair braided and her face soft with sleep. She blinks at him, and then her eyes go wide. “General—I. Uh. Mister Ironwood!” She looks back and forth between him and Ruby. “Is she—“

“Just asleep.” Ruby makes a pained noise, and he eases her to the ground, lets Winter grab Ruby and lift her up, one arm slung around the girl’s shoulder. “Dehydrated, probably with a concussion. I need somewhere for her to rest.” James pauses, and then adds, “Also, I need someone to sew up an arrow wound in my bad shoulder.”

“Of course,” Winter backs into the house, blinking. “Come in, please.”

“Thank you,” James’ voice is fervent—he means it. He ducks in under the low doorway, closes it behind him, and lets out a long slow breath. 

He never thought he would be so happy to see a Schnee out west.

 

 

Ruby wakes up fully to what feels like a feather bed, her arms and legs sluggish and awkward. She groans, sunlight dappled over her eyes, and finally manages to open them both.

It _is_ a feather bed. She’s in a small, plain clapboard room, in a well-made bed, wearing a shift. There’s a window above the bed, letting in light and showing her a well-kept neighbourhood of whitewashed buildings. It smells strongly of pancakes in the room, coming from inside the house, and there’s the sound of voices and footsteps.

Ruby groans, and it takes her a moment to sit up, her head spinning. She doesn’t feel _nearly_ as bad as she did when she’d fallen asleep, bouncing against Ironwood’s shoulder, and she rubs her face, trying to wake up. Footsteps approach, and Ruby stares out the door as a girl her own age comes into the room, wearing a white and blue dress with platinum blonde hair tied up behind her face.

“Oh!” She startles, pressing both hands to her mouth, blinking. “You’re awake. Oh. Oh!” She hesitates, and then rushes in, puts the tray she’s holding on Ruby’s bedside table, and nods, decisively. “I’ll go get the Gener—uh, Docto—ah. Mister Ironwood.” She hurries back out of the room, bare feet slapping on the floor, and Ruby blinks.

“Huh,” she says at last, and reaches over to get the water off of the tray and slowly drinks it, easing into the cup. She’s parched, and the cool water makes a difference almost immediately, soothing her ragged throat. As she finishes it, there’s a much heavier set of footsteps, extremely lopsided, up the stairs, and by the time Ruby has lifted up the bowl of thick soup broth and vegetables, the man who arrested her uncle steps into the doorframe, ducking his head several inches as to not bang it on the lintel.

“You seem much more awake than last I saw you,” he says, deep voice amused. He’s half-smiling and minus his coat, revealing an empty right sleeve buttoned up to his shoulder, and he comes in slowly, limping heavily on his right leg as he pulls over a wicker chair. “Eat that slowly, by the way.” Ruby nods, and slows down, putting the spoon back down rather than shovelling the entire bowl into her mouth. Ironwood sinks into the chair, stretching out his right leg awkwardly, and sets into his lap a doctor’s bag. “How are you feeling?” 

“Sore,” Ruby says, and her voice sounds better already. “Tired. My head hurts, but less than it did before.” He nods, and pulls out a match, strikes it on his thumbnail, and holds it up.

“Follow that with your eyes, please.” Ruby does so, and it’s a little hard to focus on it, her eyes not quite working right. “It’s all right if it’s hard. You took quite the thump to your head.” 

“Mercury hit me with a pistol,” Ruby replies, and Ironwood nods.

“I thought as much.” He shakes out the match after a moment longer, sets it on her tray. “You’ve got a concussion, but not a bad one. More than anything, you’re just exhausted and dehydrated.” He grabs the back of the chair, and with a great deal of care, gets back to his feet. “We’re in Atlas, with the daughters of a friend of mine. You met Weiss earlier, Winter is her older sister. They’re going to make sure you recover all right.”

“Where are you going?” Ruby tries to slide out of bed, and he pushes her back in.

“Mistral, to meet up with your uncle and Oz. Ruby, you have to _stay here_. You’re exhausted; you need to rest.” He hesitates. “We’ll come get you when we head back toward Beacon, all right? For now, just rest, recover. Weiss and Winter will take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself! I want to come!”

“No.” Ironwood’s voice gets hard, _fast_. “Your uncle trusted me to take care of you and make sure you were safe, so I am. Qrow wants you here, somewhere you can’t get hurt.” His face softens. “Please, Ruby. I know you want to help, but the best thing that you can do right now is stay somewhere Qrow knows you won’t get hurt.”

Ruby sags. He’s right. After a long moment, she nods. Ironwood hesitates, and sets his hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll bring him back,” Ironwood promises. She smiles, slightly, as he adds, “And this time, not to hang. Your uncle is a good man, if one who needs to stop stealing.” 

“Thank you,” Ruby murmurs, after he’s gone, to the sound of receding hoof beats.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James can count his heartbeats.
> 
> One.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear this fic will get finished ITS ACTUALLY...QUITE CLOSE. thank you everyone who encouraged me to pick it back up & stick w it!!

James _rides_.

 

 

It is near to five days from Atlas to Mistral, and Qrow and Ozpin have a head start on him, a space between them that grows with every passing hour. If he's to catch up, he will have to push his horse near to a lather to do it. He will do it. He will somehow do it.

The Montana sky wheels over him, from sunrise to sunset. The stars, great swathes of pinpricks scattered on the blanket of the night, spin overhead. He breathes, and breathes. His horse pants as they gallop, and when they walk he dismounts to give her time to recover.

It is not the hardest ride he has ever made. He hopes it may be the last.

 

 

A day outside of Atlas, and James sees the figure following him long before she realises he’s caught her. He ends up waiting atop a rise, smoking the last of his tobacco in the shade of a towering pine, and she slows when she reaches him, hesitant. Nervous, and rightly so, of his disapproval.

Winter Schnee rides her horse up to stand in front of him, the mare prancing a little nervously as she picks up on her rider’s agitation. James watches her for some time, silent, as he smokes his cigarette down to embers and ashes and flicks it onto the ground. Her face is set and her eyes are narrowed, and she doesn’t look like she’s going to bend on this.

James remembers Winter Schnee from when she was born. She was a healthy baby, all things considered, and had never been a squaller. She’d come out stubborn and had grown up the same way; age had not eased her temper in the slightest. She’d been just as stick-to-it as a toddler, desperate for the handsome doctor to give her a taffy as she had been during the war, spitting and swearing and covered in his blood and forcing him to _live_.

“Well?” Winter snaps, finally, tossing her hair and sticking out her sharp chin at him. “Aren’t you going to chastise me?”

“You’re a grown woman,” James replies at last, grinding the butt of the cigarette out in the dirt before hauling himself back into the saddle. “You’ll make your own decisions, with my counsel or no. If you trust Weiss to stay with Ruby, who am I to question you?”

“Gen—“

The silence is deafening. She holds it for a moment, and he breaks the eye contact they have, with years of unspoken anguish and bad blood hanging between them. He turns away, kicks his mare on.

“I’m not your commanding officer any more, Winter,” he says as he rides past her, once again west, and west, and west. “You don’t have to follow me into battle.” He doesn’t say it but _she never had to in the first place_.

Winter follows, because of course she does. She never did know when to quit.

 

 

They find the first sign of their quarry late on the third day on the trail—a cook-fire, still smouldering, with the stones around it arrayed in the form of a Q, a clever note from Qrow, no doubt. They cannot be too much further ahead. Winter turns the coals over with a stick to spare him dismounting, but they find nothing but bones and ash.

All of their horses are exhausted. Beacon to Mistral, near a gallop the whole way, is no easy ride. Qrow and Ozpin, Cinder and the girl in the bonnet, cannot keep their pace, but neither can he. Winter’s mare, the only fresh one, takes distance on his own every hour, and Winter has to rein back to stay by his side, trusting him to keep them on track when he is navigating by gut and compass and stars, no soldier’s intuition telling him which way it is home.

Thinking of Qrow and Ozpin like _home_ leaves the taste of ash in his mouth.

 

 

On the fourth day, James finds blood.

Winter blanches, but she has seen—dealt with, held in her hands—worse. Neither of them questions too much whose it might be.

They ride.

 

 

The fifth day.

The sun rises.

James feels beaten sore and bloody, his bad leg just a stump of pain clawing its way up his hipbone and into his spine, each thud of his horse's hooves on the ground sending scatter-shot bursts of anguish up his ribs and into his chest, sharp pinpricks around his heart and lungs. His horse is wheezing with every step, and she is so near to a lather that she may not be able to make the ride back. Winter has gone silent, her lips tight to her teeth, and she holds herself even now like a slip in her shoulders will earn a chastisement from an officer. She stays by his side, though. Just like she always has and always will, tenacity incarnate.

Dust off of the prairie, brought north in great stormclouds of sand, fills his eyes, and James grits his jaw with every step further forward. He longs for a fresh meal of the kind he had in Atlas, aches for a day in a feather bed to rest the saddle sores on his ruined hips.

From atop a rise he can see the sprawl of Mistral through his telescope, closer than the horizon, nestled between two hills. Just south of the city, a train is screaming into the station, belching heavy smoke that billows up into the sky in a thick line. The clouds scud across above him, impossibly fast and wrenchingly slow all at the same time. His breaths taste stale—it's not the same clear, crisp Montana air he has come to know and love. It tastes like sweat and dying men, fire and blood-churned soil and the soft stench of bodies rotting in the honey-sweet Southern heat.

He cannot tell if it is Mistral that smells of war and chaos and death, or if it is him and Winter, bringing the old bones of the War with them.

 

 

The War.

James had never meant to fight in it.

Oh, he had been invested, of course, from the start. Penny, after all, had dark skin and corkscrew-kinking hair, her bright green eyes that grew luminescent in her face a gift from some Confederate faux-aristocrat, no doubt. She’d come into the world in a shed as her mother breathed her first and last—first breaths of free Pennsylvania air, last of life, dying with her quiet baby girl in her arms.

Penny had been his, then, from the moment she’d grasped one of his fingers in her tiny, soft newborn hand. And he’d been irrevocably hers.

He never would have fought in the war if they hadn’t moved south of the Mason-Dixon line. If Virginia, and politics, hadn’t called to him. If Weyland hadn’t brought him along on the man’s ill-timed venture out of business and into Congress. But Weyland Schnee had found James Ironwood as a young man barely out of medical school and brought him into the world, and James had owed the man a debt—one he never truly repaid—and he had come with.

Penny had died, screaming, clawing at the dirt as their little house in Richmond burned, her dark fingers churning grass and earth and all James could do was watch as they took his little girl away.

Watch, and watch, and—

He was almost glad that they’d struck him until it had all gone dark.

He hadn’t had to watch her breathe her last, just like he’d watched her mother.

 

 

James and Winter find the girl with the green bonnet probably ten miles out from Mistral, in a low valley. She's curled up at the side of the road, in a patch of brambles, bleeding. Unmoving.

His bad leg, more a stump than anything coherent at this point, makes a heavy thud when he lands out of the saddle. Winter dismounts behind him, gathering the reins of both their horses, and pulls out her pistol without being asked. The girl does not stir, although James can see her breathing. As he approaches, James can see the bloodspots clear on her back. Not quite at her heart, but close.

“Who is she?” Winter asks, voice pitched deep and quiet, as James reaches the edge of the brambles and pushes them away with his false arm, ignoring how the briars tear at his sleeve.

“One of the kidnappers,” he replies.

Winter cocks her pistol, the sound of the safety clicking off loud in the silence.

Kneeling down as best he can with his bad leg, James carefully grabs the young woman around the waist and hauls her out, shifting once he can to protect her head from bumping along the ground. She comes out with a slick, wet noise, and a smear of blood remains on the leaf-strewn forest floor where he moved her, coagulating already. Carefully, he turns her over and she opens bleary eyes at him.

They're the same colour as the dirt her blood has tinged red.

Her breathing is laboured and wet, and a broken-hafted arrow sticks out of her chest, the wood snapped violently off near her skin. The point is embedded between two ribs, clearly puncturing a lung. It’s deep—far deeper than the matching one that James had taken in the shoulder.

"Kill me," she whispers, her voice cracking. Blood bubbles out between her lips, frothy and horribly red, almost unbelievably. It reminds him of the way pomegranate juice stains your hands—reminds him of Penny's little dark fingers with their nails turned bright red from the juice, brightening her lips like she was wearing paint. The girl laughs, and more blood bubbles between her lips.

James knows that the blood on her back is staining his white suit.

He doesn't care.

He stays silent, considering, and at last chooses to say nothing, helping her to sit further up. Winter, behind his shoulder, takes that as the peace offering it is, and clicks the safety back on her pistol.

At this point, there’s nothing the gun would do anyway. There’s no point in shooting a woman already dead.

The girl wheezes in pain, but relaxes slightly as she settles back against his good leg, cupped in his remaining arm. "What happened?" He asks, watching her face. Most of the injuries from bullets she has are ones that he, Qrow, and Ozpin gave her previously—none of them should have been deadly on their own, and even combined, with proper medical treatment she would survive.

James has a very intimate knowledge of how much the human body can survive. He knows more than he'd like to of just how many bullets it takes to down a man or a woman. He knows how you can keep crawling on when filled with iron and lead. He never shoots to kill.

All he can do now is just make her comfortable and wait for the end to come.

"Dead weight," the girl laughs, mirthlessly, and coughs when she does it. More blood flecks her lips and chest, and James puts pressure on her chest to ease her breathing, her ragged gasps quieting. "I couldn't ride any more. Cinder figured she'd be faster without me."

"Qrow and Ozpin?"

She doesn’t respond, lets the question hang. She’ll give him nothing, not an inch, not even as she bleeds out in his arms. Her bonnet slides back, revealing the same dark, coarse hair as Qrow, a match to her earthy eyes and burnt-caramel skin.

This close, James realises how startlingly young she is. She can't be much older than Ruby. (Much older than _Penny_ , his mind supplies.)

"You're a doctor," she asks, after a moment of wet-cough silence, and looks up at him. There's blood dripping out her nose, and her heart is still pulsing, but it slows. Slows. "How do I look?"

"Your lungs are full of blood," James says, quietly. She smiles, a horrible burning grimace, and tears light the corners of her eyes. "You were dead before I ever got here."

She laughs, and it’s a sound no more melodious than a knife-point along a chalkboard or bile bubbling at the back of your throat.

"What," she snarls, "Now you expect some deathbed pronouncement of the truth? That I'll tell you where they all went? _Help_ ," she spits, blood splattering his face, “You?”

"No," James adjusts her, helps her get comfortable, ignores the blood now dripping down the side of his unshaved cheek. As she eases back she breathes slightly better, and some of the rictus leaves her face.

He had made a promise years before, when the fever broke and he saw clearly again, that no other man, woman, or child would die by his hands. He'd seen enough blood and death, enough anguish and suffering. Tried too hard and too long to save soldiers full of bullets and shattered, broken bones, just to see them slip away.

He _trusts_ Qrow and Ozpin. He must. He knows that they are about to ride into fire, quite literally. They will do it with or without him, and he has one more duty he must complete here. "Whatever will happen now, will happen,” he admits at last. He hears Winter stifle a curse. “I'll wait with you. Until the end."

The girl watches him.

She is crying, now. Slow, hot tears that wash stripes of blood off of her face. "Why?" she asks, voice cracking, blood burbling at the back of her throat. "I'm your enemy."

"No-one should die alone," he says. She is still crying, slumping in his arms. "Nobody should be forced to go on without a hand." Says Doctor James Ironwood. General James Ironwood. Bounty Hunter James Ironwood.

He always stays to watch them hang. He stands, beside them on the gallows, when they hang.

No-one should die alone.

Her breathing labours. "Please," she whispers. She's shaking and crying, her heartbeat so slow and quiet that he can no longer feel it through her back. "Make it stop."

James watches her face, her anguished eyes. The softness still in her supple skin, the bullets riddling her body he put there himself. Winter reaches down one hand and squeezes his good shoulder tight, her fingers digging into his skin through the cloth of his shirt. She can tell what he’s going to do, known him long enough to see it coming, and this is all she can do, all she can say, to tell him he’s right.

James lifts his metal hand, and cups it over the girl’s nose and mouth, presses down. Down. Down until he feels her chest restrict, her dying body tensing, clenching. Holds it, holds her eyes with his.

Watches, as her heart stops beating and she—

Stills.

Slumps.

Falls.

He gently lays her back on the forest floor. “There’s no time,” Winter whispers. Qrow and Ozpin have to be nearby, and the longer James isn’t with them the more worried he grows. “We have to leave her.”

“I know,” he murmurs. James folds her hands gently over her chest, and pulls free the arrowhead that killed her, places it between them. Someone will find her, he’s sure—the path between Mistral and Atlas is one frequently ridden.

He mounts back up, his white suit now marred and stained not only by the dirt and sweat of the road, but by blood. Winter follows him, silent and reserved, and when he looks at her, her blue eyes are sombre. The death of a girl he could not save tastes like bile at the back of his throat, and hangs as a pall over them both.

Penny’s little, dark hands covered not in pomegranate juice, but in blood, are all he can think of. Green eyes, gone still and cold.

He kicks his horse on with a shout, because there is nothing else he can do, and somewhere between there and Mistral, Qrow and Ozpin need him.

 

 

It is at the top of the next rise that he hears a gunshot and reins to a halt, immediately alert. Winter beside him launches up in her stirrups, platinum blonde hair whipping around her face, looking frantically over the treetops. Perhaps half a mile west, James can see birds shrieking as they scatter out of the tree line, and a second gunshot from the same area confirms it.

“That them?” Winter asks, glancing back at him, and he nods mutely. Probably—it seems like the kind of thing Qrow would do.

With the spot in his mind, James dismounts and ties his horse up near some grass so she has something, at least, to chew on. Winter follows his lead, and slings a rifle over her shoulder. James loads himself down with his guns and his doctor’s bag, despite the almost palpable ache where his own rifle is missing, and together without any more said they start off the path and into the forest. This isn’t their first time going into a gunfight with no idea what’s waiting for them, and he trusts Winter absolutely. She’s got his back.

It’s high afternoon and sunlight dapples through the trees in harsh slants of light that are all cast with jagged shadows from the needles, the northern evergreen forests almost all great, swooping pine boughs. He moves as fast as he can through the undergrowth, glad that he’s not dealing with east coast forests, Winter pointing out rough terrain before he takes his bad leg to uneven earth. Running through the Appalachians is almost impossible—there, every step is a pitfall, every inch is roots, every tree is sticky with sap and the leaves litter the ground in ankle-deep decay. Here, with pine needles, he can actually run.

Well, _run_ isn’t entirely what he would call it, his awkward lop-sided stride, good hand held out to balance for his ruined leg made twice, three times worse by the days in the saddle. Still, he moves as fast as he can, stumbling downhill, cursing as his face and hand are cut by branches, skidding down sharp cliffs and almost tripping into a stream as he heads for the clearing that the gunshots came from.

Another gunshot, and this time slightly east. Winter has her rifle slung off her shoulder and cocked even as James turns, moving on, and nearly trips over the body in the undergrowth before he stumbles, turns back.

“Oz!”

Ozpin is laying crumpled in the roots of an ancient pine. He’s paler even than usual, skin almost whiter than his hair. His arm is still in its sling, the bandages still around his head, and his left hand is pressed to his side. Blood stains the insides of his fingers, and his dark green suit, absurd as it is, is hiding the worst of the mess, but James can see it. There’s a heaviness to blood-soaked clothing that is somehow thicker than waterlogged cloth, and if he didn’t know, Ozpin’s laboured breathing would confirm it.

Winter lowers the rifle.

“Hello, General,” says the Marshall, coughing as James kneels beside him, hissing between his teeth at the pain in his bad leg, pushing Ozpin’s hands aside and tearing his shirt open, ignoring the buttons, to see the damage. “A little unnecessary roughness, there, don’t you think? I am a dying man, and you can’t even—“

“Shut up,” James snaps, ripping the cotton of his shirt away, revealing Ozpin’s pale stomach marred with an ugly bullet wound, oozing blood, just above his right hipbone.

“What on earth has youth come to.” James wants to retort that he’s well over forty, he’s not much younger than Ozpin himself (if Ozpin has ever aged, will ever age) but instead just drops his bag and wrenches it open. “General, I’ll survive—“

“Like hell—“

“James, _Qrow_.” James looks up, halfway through threating his suturing needle, and sees Ozpin’s face. When he does, he goes cold all the way down to his toes, because—

Ozpin looks _scared_.

Ozpin doesn’t look scared that he’s been shot, could die (and oh, James has seen men die from less than this before). Ozpin looks frightened about Qrow. “He can’t stop them both by himself,” Ozpin whispers, his voice hot, and he grabs James by the back of his neck with his bloody hand, drags him close. “You _have_ to go. If you don’t, and he dies—“

“I can deal with this,” Winter says firmly, shoving on James’ shoulder and kneeling beside Ozpin. She wrenches his doctor’s bag out of his hand, and pulls out suturing string and needles. “You’re needed elsewhere.”

“Winter—“

She looks up at him, her face fiercer than he’s seen since that awful day she’d dragged him half-dead into a collapsed tent, and forced him to live.

“ _Go,_ James!”

 

 

James has known Qrow for, all said and done, less than a month. However, if he has learned anything about the younger man in that much time, it is this: he makes himself very easy to find.

This is no exception, because as James sprints through the trees, Winter’s borrowed rifle slapping against his back, Qrow comes rolling down a hill in front of him, bleeding from a bullet graze on the cheek and with an arrow embedded in his leg.

Qrow looks up, and when he sees James his face lights up like the sky on the Fourth of July. Before he can say anything, though, another arrow slams into the ground about two inches from his face, and he rolls to his feet, snapping the haft off at the skin. “Come on,” Qrow gasps, grabbing James’ good arm and hauling him behind a tree before shoving his rifle back into his arms. James holds the barrel in his good hand, and feels instantly better. It’s only been a few days, but he never knew just how _much_ he could miss a gun. Despite everything else, despite the blood drying on his clothes, despite Winter crouched some ways behind him frantically trying to stitch back together Ozpin’s shredded body, he feels _right_ with the rifle in his hands. Man can leave war, he supposes, but war never leaves man.

“What’s going on?” James manages to ask, as Qrow peers around the tree trunk, one hand pressed to James’ chest, the other one putting pressure on his sluggishly bleeding thigh, holding his pistol. “Ozpin—“

“Doesn’t know when to quit,” Qrow spits, shaking his head. “We were too late. Cinder met Salem.” That means almost nothing to James. Cinder, that’s their wayward arsonist and kidnapper. _Salem_ , though, that’s a name he’s never heard. At least, not in this context.

No...he has.

Mercury had said that was who Cinder was intending to meet—and now, clearly has. Ozpin had said he had _unfinished business_ with Salem, and whatever it was, it was enough to earn him a bullet to the gut. “Not going to explain?” James finally asks, setting Winter’s rifle against the tree trunk for her to find when she follows, before popping his own open to check the load—three more bullets in the chamber. It’s enough.

You can do a lot with three bullets.

“Sure,” Qrow replies, as he finishes loading his pistol, glancing up at James’ face. “Later, when we’re not getting shot at.” As if to follow up his statement, the crack of a shotgun going off is almost deafeningly loud, and James grabs the younger man and hauls him to the side so they’re moving, putting distance. He needs a vantage point, somewhere to shoot from, a clearing or something—

“Found you!” Cinder, all lithe youth and legs, drops out of the canopy, and has her crossbow up and firing before either of them can do anything.

“Drop!” James shouts, twisting, and throws the weight of his body on top of Qrow, knocking the both of them to the forest floor. Qrow goes down under him with a shout of surprise, his pistol misfiring next to James’ right ear, and he’s never been so glad to already be part-deaf on that side, the ringing making his eyes water but probably won’t do any permanent damage.

The post-gunshot blast of silence makes his head roll like the echo between mountain peaks as they slide downhill in a tumble of legs and arms for what seems like forever before they come to a stop. It is only once they’ve stilled that James can feel the bloody ache of a crossbow bolt punched into and through the meat of his lower shoulder, narrowly missing his heart, the tip scraping dully against Qrow’s shirt where the younger man is under him.

They lay still.

 

 

James has been here before.

Weyland Schnee had been everything to him. His mentor, his best friend, his father, his conscience. Weyland had been there when James had been a nobody from New York, had seen the talent in him even when James had been so wet behind the ears he hadn’t seen it himself, and had picked him up directly out of his medical degree, put him on his feet, and pushed.

He still remembers their first meeting, clear as day. Weyland had been all of forty, already a very successful heir to the Schnee coal-mining empire, with Winter still near a babe in arms. James’ first job had been as the family doctor, caring for the ill toddler that would grow up to be his dearest, most trusted, friend.

They had been inseparable, him and Weyland. They had gone to Congress together, although only Weyland had been elected. James would have gone anywhere with him.

After Penny had been killed, Weyland had stood staunchly by his side. Winter and Weiss had been a light in the tunnel then, always there for him. Sometimes, James felt like they considered him as much a father as Weyland.

Well, Weiss did.

Winter had always been...more difficult.

When James had joined the war effort, Weyland had pulled strings to get him enrolled as an officer, and the promotions had come pouring in afterward. He had never attended anything like West Point, but he was a talented tactician, and had always felt at home as a leader. He was a natural in military command, and made General.

Weyland had visited the battlefield, to see the troops under James’ command. It had been a sunny day in mid-October of 1863, the clear Virginia sky bright, bright blue. It had smelled like turning foliage, and the scent of sweat and blood from hundreds of men in one small space. He still could feel the breeze, blowing from the east, and hear the distant, comforting lock-step march of drills and the click of prepared guns being brought to bear in formation.

The day was brand-burned into his mind, just like Penny’s face had been the night they’d taken her. It had never left him; he’d never stopped seeing it in his dreams. It was like the whorl of his thumbprint. For good or ill, that day was a part of him now.

Half-shredded clouds had ripped across the sky, cirrus blown to pieces by the wind off of the coast, scudding so fast in front of the sun that there was no time for shade to do more than flit overhead. Weyland had asked him some questions about their needs in terms of supplies and provisions; James for the life of him couldn’t remember what. He’d just remembered looking toward Weyland, seen the scattered sunspots dancing on his face, against the grizzled roughs of his beard.

And then the cannons had fired. He had heard it, but there had been no time to respond, no time to do—anything. Just enough time to look, toward the enemy lines, and then Weyland’s face.

The last look on his face had been one of a gentle smile, sorrowful and all too cognisant of what was coming, before the grapeshot had hit them. It had taken Weland’s head off at the neck, nearly sliced his horse clean in two. James, turned away from it, had not taken it to the chest. Instead, he’d had his right arm crushed up to the shoulder, bones shattered. His hip had been smashed, his right leg mangled. His horse had toppled, shrieking and dying, and broken his left leg. His head had collided with the ground, cracking against the hard turf, and the last thing he’d seen had been Weyland’s mangled body, bleeding, bleeding, bleeding.

He’d woken up three days later in a tent, having missed the entire battle, barely alive. They’d amputated his ruined arm before he awoke: his only memories of the incident were fire-red and bloody, screaming pain. His leg had been all in one piece, so had been left, set.

The Union had won the battle, with more casualties than James would have ever allowed. His men had rallied when he had gone down, fought for their General, struggling for life. And, when he had pulled through the worst of it, they had cheered. Cheered for a man who would never walk again, never hold a rifle again, battling against fever and infection, incoherent and at his wit’s end.

 

 

Never again.

Gritting his teeth, James leans up just far enough that he can see Qrow’s face, biting so hard into his lip that he taste the blood. For a moment, he wavers, and then lets his false arm take his weight as he snaps the crossbow bolt off at the skin. It’s not deadly; got nothing vital. Still, it is a serious injury, and one that needs treatment sooner rather than later.

He’s not worried about himself right now, though. James has lived through worse. He is worried about _Qrow_ , who is still and crumpled on the leaves beneath him, his dark hair mussed and tossed over his face, his limbs sprawled like a puppet with all its strings cut. “Qrow,” James hisses, still laying low, trying to not make too many sudden motions. They fell well over a hundred feet, rolling through detritus. It was sheer luck alone that no rocks or trees broke their descent—but that distance is no doubt part of what is keeping their pursuers off their tail. “Qrow!” he tries again, louder this time, but the other man does not stir.

James cups his neck, trying to feel for a pulse, and finds blood matting the other man’s hair, slick against his fingers. He’s shaking, he realises.

Qrow, finally, opens his eyes. For a moment, they’re hazy and unfocused, looking past James’ shoulder as if he doesn’t realise that James is there. Then, moments later, they snap back into focus, and instantly find his own. Qrow gasps, in quiet pain, and winces, pressing fingers to the back of his skull. “Just scraped it,” he whispers, a jaunty smile on his lips. “Must’ve knocked me out for a minute there.” _Concussion_ James does not want to say, but if Qrow is this coherent, it could be a lot worse.

There are footsteps rustling the leaves further up the hill, and James hisses between his teeth. With the scant moments they have, he places his rifle beside him, hand wrapped around the stock and finger just beside the trigger. The safety is off and it’s cocked—any shot he gets off will need only how long he needs to get the rifle up, sighted, and fired. “Go still,” he whispers to Qrow, who does as instructed, shutting his eyes and lolling back down against the earth even as James steadies his breathing as ragged as possible. Qrow’s own rising and falling chest will be hidden by his bulk, but his own is obvious enough. Fortunately for them, he knows what a dying man looks like.

Playing the part isn’t too hard.

The footsteps come closer in the undergrowth, hesitant, and then faster as they come down the last of the hill. “There they are.” It’s Cinder’s voice, sharp and pleased with herself. “I knew they landed down here somewhere.”

“You did hit him.” It’s the voice of an older woman, thickly accented something native, some language that James could not begin to hope to name. “In the chest, too.”

“A little high to get his lung, but probably nearly got his heart.” The women come over and stop, and James stills himself as much as possible. Holds beats between each shallow, ragged breath. His ruse is a bad one, and anybody looking too close would notice that the crossbow bolt punctured his deltoid and pectoral, didn’t hit anything vital. Didn’t even scrape the subclavian. “Let’s take a look.” Cinder’s footsteps approach, and James opens one eye.

Qrow is looking back at him with one eye, the mash of their cheekbones hiding their coherence. The other man cocks an eyebrow, smiles with one half of his mouth.

Cinder kneels down beside him, and they move as one, Qrow throwing all his strength up against James to make up for his bad arm and leg. Qrow is deceptively strong, despite being as wiry and lean as a scarecrow, and the push takes him rocking back on his knees. Cinder doesn’t have a moment for surprise, because he already has his rifle in hand.

After he woke up in that tent, in the War, down one arm, James had had to relearn _everything_. From taking a piss to shooting a gun, he’d had to learn it all over again. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d always been stubborn, and Winter was just as devoted to getting him back on horseback as he was. By the end of the War, he was a good shot with his left arm—and now he’s better than that; a crack hand at aiming with his rifle.

At this distance, less than five paces, he can’t miss. James braces the butt of his rifle against his hipbone, not even taking the time to sight, and then does what Cinder _should_ have done: fires his bullet directly into her neck, ripping apart her jugular and carotid.

The gush of blood is frightening, a spray that soaks the dead foliage and both Qrow and James. Cinder goes down without a sound at all, crumpling and twitching as her blood sprays. James throws himself the bit forward he needs and claps his good hand to her throat, putting pressure on the injury and holding her neck steady with his knee. Cinder looks at him with rage and fury in her eyes, her face a rictus of pain.

James looks up and finds a shotgun less than a foot from his face. The woman holding it is, indeed, about the same age as Ozpin, and she looks it. Her hair, tied up and knotted around pins, is thick to the point of going to dreadlocks, and grizzled grey with age. Her skin is mixed—black and native, most like—and her brown eyes are ruthless. Fine lines ring her nose and mouth, and her eyes are sunken in the hollow sockets. She’s got some kind of ornament on her forehead, and thick varicose veins break up the skin of her cheeks and temples.

“Very funny,” she says, solemnly. She cocks the shotgun, and the _ker-chack_ is loud in the silence of the grove. The barrels, yawning and black, are trained directly between James’ eyes.

He stares right back at her, unafraid.

“If you kill me, she dies.”

“If you live she dies as well. You don’t just survive that kind of wound.” She snorts, her upper lip curled into a sneer. “You either kill a woman outright or you injure her, you don’t leave her clinging to life as torture.”

“Trust me,” James says drily, “I’ve dealt with worse. I can save your girl.” Not daughter—there’s no visual resemblance. Besides, Cinder is white. So, protégé, maybe. “If you kill me, she’s dead for sure.”

The woman laughs, her head thrown back, but never takes her eyes off of James, who can neither reach for his gun nor move his hand from Cinder’s neck. Qrow, behind him, is frozen where he is, still half-risen. “Oh, like I ever cared about her. Do you, General Ironwood, care for the tool that helps you build a piece of furniture? A hammer is a hammer is a hammer, General Ironwood. I don’t care less if you break one.”

There is something about hearing his name, on her lips, that leaves James cold down to the toes. He wants to shudder in fear of her—the sneering disgust, the brutal sterility of her words. _She knows who he is_ and he knows nothing about her. “But then again, you wouldn’t know that. I’ve heard you’re a one for compassion, General. Don’t kill. I’d say that’s less compassion, James, and more _weakness_.” There’s a shuffle from where Qrow is sitting, where James is too scared to look, and Salem without looking turns and fires one barrel of her shotgun.

Qrow screams, and James yells his name, turning toward the younger man. He’s sprawled on his side, having thrown himself down at the last moment. There’s flyspeck wounds in his left shoulder—birdshot damage, that taken to the chest, probably would have killed him. He’s not shaking, but there’s blood dripping down his chest and arm, and his eyes are so wide James can see the whites.

Salem turns the shotgun back to him. “The other one,” she says matter-of-factly, “is pure lead. When I fire it, there won’t be enough of your skull left for them to figure out who your corpse was.”

“Not my first time,” James replies, baring his teeth. “I survived that one too.” Salem’s face is stoic, and there is something about the unnatural _nothing_ of her expression that scares him more than anything about her gun at his face ever could. “At least do your girl in before you let her bleed out.”

“No.” Salem replies, cocking the other barrel. The click of the safety pulling off is so loud that James can feel the hair all down his spine tingle. “Why waste a bullet on dying game?”

“You’re a fucking nasty piece of work—“ James snarls, and freezes when she moves the shotgun barrel far enough forward that it presses, warm, against the skin of his forehead. His breathing is impossibly loud in his ears, and he feels oddly disconnected.

He should be scared, he supposes. He should be terrified. This is different from dying in war—where every day was probably your last one, where you couldn’t see it coming until you were on the battlefield and in a morass of blood and death. There, if you died, you died. You did your duty, and sometimes, you died for it. That was very different from _this,_ knowingly facing down his death one heart-stopping second at a time. This is admitting you’re ready to die. This is choosing.

“Ozpin would hate to lose his little bird,” Salem whispers, and James’ heartbeat is so fast and so loud that it’s bumping the barrel against his eyebrow. “I do know how much he loves his raven. But you, James...you can’t even kill an unarmed girl.” As she speaks, Cinder’s blood is pulsing between his fingers, even as he desperately tries to keep her alive.

When Salem shoots him, Cinder will die. He can already tell she’s fallen unconscious, and when his hand comes off her neck, she’ll have a few moments before she bleeds out. A second death in as many hours, blood of girls no older than Penny on his hands. When Salem shoots him, she’ll probably finish up Qrow, and then go back for Ozpin and Winter. When Salem shoots him—

There’s nothing he can do.

Salem will shoot him. He can’t even get his rifle, dropped when he rushed to Cinder’s side.

“There’s _nothing,_ ” Salem snarls, “that I hate more than a self-righteous American _coward_.”

 

 

James can count his heartbeats.

_One._

Winter will have to tell Weiss. They’re his only remaining family, even loosely—the funeral expenses will be on them. He hopes that Winter still has all of his papers stored with her, all that she would need to properly contact his banks back East. That can pay for the funeral expenses. Montana to Arlington is too far; he hopes she’ll remember to get a stone erected there, even if his body won’t make it. His will leaves everything to her, she’ll make the best of it. He just hopes that the wound is clean. He hopes that it’ll be enough that she won’t be forced to see his mangled, caved-in face around the hole that Salem is about to leave between his eyes. Rather be cut in two than just punched through.

 _Two_.

Qrow is still in danger. He’s close enough to James’ rifle that he wants to kick it into his hands. At least he can finish what James started: Qrow isn’t a coward. He’ll do what James cant bring himself to do. He’ll put one between Salem’s eyes; James knows it. He just hopes that Qrow is coherent enough to do it. The concussion would be impacting his aim, but this close it’s almost impossible to miss. The best time to take the shot will be right after she fires. If Qrow can just—

 _Three_.

He let Cinder and the girl in the green bonnet die. He killed both with his own hands, when he promised for Penny, _never again_. She won’t be happy when he sees her, she’ll be so angry. He had just wanted to do his best for her and this is how it comes to an end, on his knees, covered in the blood of two dying girls, with lead shot between his eyes, dying for a man he would have seen hung two weeks previous. She would have liked that, though, she would have liked Qrow.

 _Four_.

At least Ruby and Yang and Weiss are safe. At least they’re safe. That’s enough for him.

At least Qrow won’t go through what he did. A dead stranger in the too-loose skin of a coward General is one thing to lose. The trauma of a man dying in front of your eyes is one that can be overcome.

Losing a daughter can’t.

 _Five_.

“Go fuck yourself, Salem,” General James Ironwood snarls, because he’s never been afraid of a damn thing in his life, and if he’s going to meet God he’s going to do it with his conscience clean.

 _Six_.

A gunshot goes off. For a moment, James truly thinks he is dead.

And then the shotgun drops in front of him, landing hard on the ground and discharging its lead shot directly into James’ already-disfigured knee, shattering his kneecap in one brutal instant. He bellows in pain, white and red spots dancing over his eyes, and the leg goes out from under him, the slug finishing the job that the grapeshot had started all those years before, his good hand hardly catching him as he topples forward.

Salem follows her gun, hitting the ground hard. Her brown eyes are wide and staring, and the front of her forehead is blown wide open by the exit wound of a rifle bullet.

 _Seven_.

James looks up the hill. Atop it stands Winter Schnee, her rifle in her hands. Beside her is Ozpin, leaning heavily on a tree trunk, his jaw tense.

_Eight._

“James,” Qrow’s hoarse voice says. “James, stay with me,” and there’s an arm around him even as the red and white is becoming black. His hand is slipping in Cinder’s blood as her body twitches in the death throws, stilling against his leg. The top of her skull got taken off in the shot; it’s probably the only thing that slowed the bullet enough that it didn’t just remove his leg outright.

_Nine._

“The General’s been hurt!” Qrow shouts.

Footsteps rushing down the hill. His heartbeat loud in his ears. James feels like he’s going to be sick.

“I hated that leg anyway,” he hears himself say, even if it doesn’t feel like it’s his mouth that says it.

 _Ten_.

“Just cut the damn thing off,” his traitorous mouth continues. He laughs, hysterically.

“And _I’m_ the overdramatic one,” Qrow replies.

 

 

And then—

_Eleven._

Nothing. Nothing at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James wakes up.
> 
> It’s quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA HA WOW THIS FIC SURE DID TAKE ME
> 
> A YEAR
> 
> SORRY LADS

James wakes up.

It’s quiet.

Outside the open window, he can hear the sounds of the city. People yelling about shop wares, the creak of wagon wheels. Horse hooves pounding back and forth. In the distance, a train whistle blows, shrill and sharp, as it leaves the station. A bird, on the outside windowsill, cries _wipporwil_ a few times, flapping and fluffing its wings.

He is in a clapboard room, whitewashed walls, and bent awkwardly in a feather bed a few sizes too small for him. The ceiling is dappled with morning light above him, sharp and a little wan, not all that much different than the clear cool blue of the autumn Montana sky. The mattress is softer than he prefers; but it’s holding him still, sunken deep into the plush press of it. The room smells of antiseptic and dried blood—to wit, a hospital.

For a long time, James simply lays there. He takes stock of his hurts, and finds the tally worryingly high. First—sore muscles and bruises, mostly healed. The low burn of bedsores, not his first experience with them, but hopefully his last. His shoulder, where the arrow had pierced it, aches something fierce, but it is healing well. He’ll probably be stiff there for years to come where the arrowhead tore the muscle, but it’s nothing to write home about. The other one, in his bad shoulder, is nothing more than a bone-deep ache, but it will vanish too in time. His hearing is off in his right ear, but it doesn’t seem permanent. Then again, his hearing has been bad for years: the War left him less-tangible injuries, scars too far under the skin to see but for the ones writ plain all over the surface. So perhaps it will always be muffled on that side.

But it all fades next to the fact that he feels a yawning _emptiness_ and a constant, anguished burn of pain that pulses in his bone marrow with his heartbeat where his shattered, crumbled right leg should be. For now ten years, it’s been a weight. His cross to bear, slowing him, stopping him, a constant reminder of his own personal failures and—

It’s gone.

From the knee down, it’s gone.

Slowly, more slowly than perhaps he has in a great many years, James sits up. He has no idea how long he’s been unconscious, how long delirium and fever have gripped him, so he doesn’t push his body. It responds more slowly than he would like, but eventually he gets his good arm under him, leaning heavily on his remaining elbow. The healing arrow wound twinges in his shoulder when it takes his weight, but it’s nothing more than the wince of an unused limb being reminded that, eventually, muscles do have to move.

Letting the pillows hold him partway upright, James looks down, bending his left leg slightly to give him the rest of the push he needs to get him far enough up to see his right, the knee there stiff but not injured. Under the sheets and blankets he can see both his legs, no need for a winter comforter yet, and his right leg—

At the knee, it is rounded off.

“God fucking dammit,” James says. “Not again.”

 

 

It takes him five more days to get out of bed. By the time he finally levers himself off of the edge of the mattress, leaning heavily on Winter’s shoulder, he feels like bad cheese, gone stringy with whey.

When he’d lost his arm, he’d been unbalanced. He’d kept thinking that it was still there, that he still had his full range of motion. But that had been different; one half of his body had been gone, but he’d still had both legs. Without his right one, it’s not a difference in balance.

He can’t even stand.

He leans his good arm around Winter’s shoulders, and she grunts with the effort of taking his weight. Even with the wall propping him up, he still keeps nearly toppling over sideways, and there’s no way he can walk. He can’t even use a crutch on his bad side, because there’s not enough left of his shoulder to take the weight of one without causing him pain.

“This,” he tells Winter, after he’s collapsed back to the bed, sweating and uncomfortable, swinging the imaginary leg that still stretches down below his knee around to get the muscles used to working again, “Is a pain in the ass.”

 

 

On his eighth day awake, Winter finally begins to tell him what had happened. She starts big (“Oz and Qrow are fine. Mostly.”) and then slowly gives him details.

He was, apparently, conscious after the shotgun blast. Winter knows this because she got down the hill and James had somehow gotten his belt off and had notched it around his thigh as a tourniquet, and was bellowing at the top of his lungs in pain. Qrow, concussed and shit-terrified, had also been screaming.

Winter and Qrow had managed to get him upright and back to the horses, and mercifully for everyone involved, he’d fainted again when they’d had to tie him to the saddle. By the time that Winter had escorted her party of concussed, seriously injured companions into Mistral, Ozpin had been incoherent with blood loss, Qrow was barely able to walk under his own power, and James had been mercifully insensible.

The town doctors had gotten good business that day. Ozpin’s appendix had burst from the gunshot wound, but he had otherwise been perfectly unharmed in terms of internal injuries. He was still laid up in Mistral, recovering less from the emergency appendectomy and more from the amount of blood he had lost.

James had lost his leg below the knee, but somehow—miraculously—kept his femur intact. So he’s got half his bad leg left to him. Overall, not the worst thing he could be having to deal with. At least he still has that much of it left. Winter had adamantly refused to leave James in Mistral, and he’d ridden back to Atlas in a train car, barely coherent, and then slept in Winter’s guest bedroom for two weeks as his body fought off fever, infection, and the damage done.

Qrow, he learns, had only left earlier that week, when he was recovered enough that he could ride a horse. He’s turned back for Beacon.

“He didn’t want to leave you,” Winter admits, as she helps James put his prosthetic arm back on, so he can feed himself more easily, sit up without help. “But he had to go back to Ruby and Yang.”

“It’s all right,” James tells her, as she changes the dressings on his knee, and he lifts his leg carefully, weighing the strange way it sits with him. It is lighter, literally yes, but also he is almost glad that he doesn’t have to put weight on it any more. “I would have done the same.”

 

 

At the end of the first month that James spends recovering, the first autumn snows come, dusting the windowsill and the rooftops that is his view from out of bed. Winter and Weiss trade off helping him move, walk, stand. None of them have yet come up with a solution for helping him walk once he’s well enough to.

“You’ll need a new prosthetic,” Weiss tells him, one afternoon as she helps him down the last of the stairs.

“It’s a long way back to Washington,” he tells her, which isn’t an answer.

That night, Winter comes back, bundled up in her winter coat, breath steaming. James listens as he hears her stamping the snow off of her boots downstairs, and she climbs up to his room about ten minutes later. There’s still snow caught in her hair, white against platinum blonde, and her cheeks are rosy with exertion and cold.

She pauses in his doorframe and he sets down the book he’s been reading. She looks beautiful, and startlingly young. It’s an odd look on her.

“Ozpin’s stopping through Atlas next week,” Winter says after a long moment. “He said he wants to come see you. I’m trying to decide if I should let him.” James cocks an eyebrow at her.

“You don’t think I should see him?”

“He got your leg blown off.” James laughs, shakes his head, sets a bookmark in his book. Winter comes in after a moment, and sinks down into the chair by his bedside, tucks a loose lock of hair back behind her ear.

“Let’s be fair,” he chides her. “My leg got blown off during the war. Oz just made sure the job got finished properly.” He doesn’t tell her how grateful he actually is. Yes, it’s a trade-off, but at least now the pain has properly stopped for the most part. Emptiness is better than white-hot agony.

Winter is glaring at him.

She crosses her arms.

“He’s bad news,” she tells him, seriously. “He’s bad fucking news, James.” James decides that if she’s finally going to call him by his name properly, she’s earned the right. Especially after he’s gone and almost died on her. Again. “I don’t like the idea of him spiriting you off into any other schemes. You went to Beacon to get Qrow hung, and instead you ended up saving his life, and Ozpin’s, and almost dying, and—“

“Winter!” James laughs. “I can’t even ride a horse right now!” It does not placate her. She is still glaring at him. “You don’t need to worry about me.” He sets a hand, gently, on her knee, squeezes it once. “I know you worry about me—“

“James,” Winter snaps, finally losing her temper, “Of course I worry about you! And don’t you go trying to tell me all about how you’re too old to have someone like me fawning all over you because you and Weiss are all the family I have left, and she at least listens to people and doesn’t go riding off on wild goose chases! Weiss has never gotten shot!” Winter huffs for a moment, colour high on her cheekbones in her fury. “I have a responsibility to look after you—“

“Winter,” James growls, “You are _not_ my wife—“

“And I don’t want to be!” Winter’s high voice cracks back down to her natural tone, a low, rough grit. She pauses, puts her face in her hands. “I don’t know why you think that,” she mumbles into her hands. “Maybe when I was younger, James, but I’m not _fifteen_ any more.” She scrubs a hand through her hair, and it’s true.

She’s not been fifteen in a long time.

She’s closer to thirty now than anything, and there’s grey streaking her platinum hair, lines beside her eyes. Her mouth is softening. “Winter...” James hesitates as she pulls her face back from her hands, glares at him balefully. “That wasn’t what I meant—“

“With father gone, you and Weiss are all the family I have left,” she says, voice low and hollow. “And you’re the only person who ever really treats me...like who I want to be. James, I’m allowed to want to keep you safe. To want you to be all right.”

“I know,” he murmurs, reaches out, and takes her hand with his remaining one. She stares at his broad palm eclipsing hers. “Winter it’s just—I’m allowed to make stupid decisions if I want to. I am an adult.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed.” She’s not wrong.

“I know,” he replies. “But if I do, it’s my own choice.”

Winter pulls away, and leaves. He watches her as she pauses at the threshold, her hand pressed to the doorframe. She straightens her shoulders, settling back into her skin. “Stay until you’re well,” she murmurs, “And we figure out what to do about your leg. I’ll see you well, James, but after that...” she trails off. “How is it home if you only ever come back when you need us? Not even just to say hello?”

She leaves, and he doesn’t try to stop her, because she’s right. James is selfish and has never been much good for her anyway. He knows Weiss and Winter would be better off without him, but he never did know when to leave well enough alone.

 

 

He wakes up three days later to find Ozpin in the chair, examining his nails. His arm is still in the sling it was in before, and his hat is jauntily tipped half-sideways. He looks far better than last James saw him, and for a long moment he considers questioning how the other man got into the bedroom without waking him, but it’s Ozpin. So he just lets it be.

“General!” The other man says at last, smiling expansively. “I was worried young Ms. Schnee might not let me into the house. She was quite adamant about me not spiriting you off on any more fool adventures.”

“That sounds like her,” James replies, his voice coming out hoarse and ragged from sleep. “Winter doesn’t like you.”

“Well, she’ll not be the first.” James slowly wrenches himself to sit upright, and stares at Ozpin, who stares back at him. “I suppose,” Ozpin says, into the awkward silence, “You have questions for me.”

“You could say that.” He tries to say it magnanimously, but it comes out stilted despite that. It’s more complicated than that; and yet far simpler. James has many questions, but he doubts that Ozpin will answer all of them—or any of them. “I don’t suppose you’ll answer them?”

“Some, I’m sure. I can’t have you suddenly learning everything about me.” Ozpin laughs, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I must thank you, General. Or is it just Doctor, now?”

“James is fine,” he replies. “Just James. I’m not even licensed in Montana, and it’s been a long time since I was a General.”

“Just James then. I must thank you for your help with Salem. I’ll admit readily that was not how I hoped it would end, but we can’t always get what we want.” He scratches his chin. “I suppose I should feel a little more grief over my sister being, dead, but—”

James chokes on his own spit. “Your _what_?” he splutters, baffled and blindsided. “Wait, are you saying—”

“Salem was my older sister.” Ozpin cocks a brow. “Why, did you think something else?” James stares at him, because he has a lot of questions. More, now, than he did. Why, for example, did Ozpin want his sister dead? What was the story behind that chase across the better part of Montana? What had been the reason for that entire mess? Why had Salem had Ozpin shot?

What comes out of his mouth is none of those things.

What comes out of his mouth is, instead, “But you’re _white!_ ”

Ozpin, in response, bursts into uncontrollable laughter. “General!” He slaps his knee with his good hand. “I’m surprised at you! A black daughter, fought on the side of the Union, known for giving free medical help to the local tribes, and that’s—“

“Ozpin, you’re whiter than _I am!_ ” He is. James tans quite well, actually, but Oz’s skin is so fair that it looks like it would blister in the right amount of sunlight. Ozpin giggles.

“No, my dear General, I’m _albino_.” James is pretty sure his eyes start to cross. “What, how old did you think I was?” James doesn’t answer that. “Rest assured, James, I am just as mixed as Salem was. And I’m only just forty; you’re a sight older than I am.” James falls back to his pillows, his good hand pressed to his forehead.

What, as they say, the _fuck_.

That at least answers one question.

“You went to kill your own sister?”

“We never did see eye to eye.” Ozpin shifts and settles into a slightly different position, artfully sprawled. “But it is a rather complex topic, and one that I could elaborate on for hours. Suffice it to say, Salem thought that the solution to the white man coming to these parts was to just kill everyone, and I disagreed. It escalated, I left, and as you can see, we all know how that ended.”

“She torched Beacon.”

“Yes, and she planned to burn Mistral to the ground as well. As she no doubt would have, had we not intervened.” Ozpin sighs. “It’s not so simple as kill or be killed, General. Doubtless, more and more of our tribe are being wiped out, but I don’t think trying to burn the white man out will go anywhere. If anything, it will just make the retributions worse. But...this particular battle of that war has been lost.” James feels odd about this; killing someone fighting back against the Americans taking land illegally from the natives?

But it’s out of his hands, and frankly, he doesn’t feel a lot of sympathy for the woman who made sure two, possibly three, innocent kids died in pursuit of that. But he’s not going to comment on it. James knows where he doesn’t have a voice, and this is that place.

“So then I guess things worked out?” He hazards at last, and Ozpin shrugs a shoulder.

“No. Yes. Maybe. We can only wait and see, I’m afraid. It’s certainly not your problem now, not that it ever was to begin with. You’ve too-soft a heart, General.”

“Thank you?”

Ozpin stands after a moment. He’s still weak; James can tell the shake in his legs. “Well,” he says, “I’d best be going. Ms. Schnee made it quite clear that I wasn’t to tax you unnecessarily, and I’ve certainly given you enough revelations for one afternoon. As soon as you’re well enough to travel, I look forward to seeing you in Beacon. I’m sure we can talk more then.”

“Wait,” James snarls, and tries to slide out of bed, gets halfway, and then manages to hop one-legged, wobbling, the two steps from his bed to the door, grabs Ozpin’s elbow. He barely stays balanced, almost toppling as he hangs onto the other man’s sleeve. “Ozpin, don’t you _dare_.” He turns around, and looks startled.

“ _James_ ,” Ozpin breathes, grabbing him by his elbow in return, balancing his other hand on James’ hip, carefully because of his sling. “Oh my god, you can’t be up like this.” With Ozpin keeping him upright, James manages to crash back into bed, and the other man kneels before him. They’re the same height standing, and kneeling, even with James sitting on the bed, Ozpin still comes up to his collarbones. His eyes are frightened as he stares up at James. “No wonder Winter is worried about you. You’ll hurt yourself like this.”

James takes Ozpin’s arm, clutches his bicep through the fabric of his coat. “Ozpin,” he says, gruffer than he intended, but then pauses. Stops, because he can’t think of how to continue. He feels oddly set adrift by the revelations that the other man has handed him, and isn’t sure what to say. Where to go from here.

Ozpin squeezes his knee.

“You’re always welcome in Beacon, General.” When he smiles this time it actually reaches his eyes. “I know Glynda and I would be very happy to have you. I can think of someone else who would love to see more of your handsome face as well.” James can’t meet his eyes.

“I highly doubt he’d want to see me like this,” he settles on instead. Qrow is an awkward spectre hanging between them. Neither of them have said his name, not once. “I’m a little too mangled to be worth much now.”

“I rather think you discount yourself too soon.” Ozpin cups his cheek in his good hand, and James is struck dumb when the other man leans forward and kisses him. Ozpin’s lips are soft and full, plush against his own. James doesn’t respond in kind, too surprised to move, until Ozpin leans back, pulls away. “You’re a good man, James Ironwood. You just don’t seem to know that yet.”

“I’m not,” James replies, staring at the other man’s lips.

“You are,” Ozpin insists. “You just don’t know where you stand.” He pushes to his feet, cradles James’ chin. “Who are you, James Ironwood. A general? A doctor? A bounty hunter?” He hesitates, head cocked slightly to the side. “Or are you just simply a man?”

Unspoken is the statement that James can be all, or none. But he must choose, and he knows this.

“Who do you really want to be, James?” Ozpin asks, watching his eyes. He doesn’t break eye contact, and it’s unnerving. Ozpin’s eyes are very bright behind his sunglasses. “I’ll see you in Beacon.”

This time when he tries to leave, James doesn’t stop him.

 

 

Winter buys him train tickets back to Washington.

“The first leg is into the Dakotas,” she says, handing him the stack of tickets. “Then Wisconsin. You’ll go south to Chicago, then through Indiana and Ohio. One more change there, and then it’s non-stop from Ohio to Washington.” He feels odd as he holds the tickets. She had to have checked dozens of maps to find the easiest way for him to train back east.

James notices that the first ticket takes him from Atlas to Beacon.

“I thought you might want to go through,” Winter mumbles, not meeting his eyes, “To say goodbye.” He wants to correct her—it’s not goodbye, he’ll be back. But he knows that isn’t entirely true.

James Ironwood is tired. He’s closer to fifty now than forty, and he’s getting old and slow. The loss of his leg is just the final nail in the coffin, really. He’s been slowing down for some time, but now he can’t function by himself. He may never be able to again. Riding a horse is practically flat-out. Hunting? Not likely.

“I’ve wired to Ozpin,” Winter continues, fumbling. “Weiss will go with you. She wants to visit Ruby, and you’ll need a hand moving your wheelchair.” James grimaces.

“Thank you,” he settles on, rather than try to find something else instead. It feels wrong, going through Beacon to say goodbye. It feels like Beacon should be something more akin to home, a better-fitting skin than Atlas is, but it isn’t. Nothing is, not even that big old empty house back East that still feels like it’s full of Penny even when there’s nothing there but ghosts.

He’s not going home, this James knows.

He’s not going to Beacon to stay. He’s not going to Washington to go home. He’s going to Beacon to say goodbye, to bid his last farewells. He’s going to Washington to become more machine than man.

James Ironwood doesn’t have a home any more.

He doesn’t even really have somewhere he wants to stay.

 

 

James is not the person that he once was.

He’s not the doctor—his hands have given too many hurts and not enough help, there’s blood that stains his skin no matter how many times he washes it off. It’s red up past his elbows, caked into the creases of his palms. It reminds him every time he tries to help someone that he’s only coming further from his roots.

In medical school, he had sworn to do no harm. He had said it with his right hand placed atop a bible, the hand he no longer had, and promised to prevent disease, to care for his fellow man. Those were words that he could no longer claim to hold to, words he could not in truth be bound by, for he had killed many and more. The War had made a monster of him, in body and in soul and mind, and if he hadn’t recovered yet, the chances were good that he never would. He would like as not be cursed to this for the rest of his life.

And that was all right. He’d come to terms with it years ago, during the war, in the months he spent recovering in those infection-stricken tents.

He’s not the General—the War is over, Reconstruction grips the States, and his ghosts are buried about as deep as they ever will be, most of them six feet under on the rolling hillside of Arlington. Many of his opposing Generals have either died or have vanished off of the map, hiding their heads as low as they can go. He’s been forgotten. He was never a hero; he never wanted to be.

James doesn’t regret fighting for his country, and truly, doesn’t even regret the missing arm and mangled leg and hip. He does regret that he traded his peace of mind for a thousand dead bodies on the ground, and Penny’s ghost for the murdered hopes of lost young boys. He regrets that the North and South fought over something so _clear_ and _obvious_ as a human’s right to live and live for themselves. He regrets that there was ever anyone who ever thought differently.

He regrets that he didn’t do more to keep his little girl alive.

But they’ve gone beyond that now. And there’s no going back.

James isn’t any of those things any more. He’s not even the bounty hunter, running through the wilds of the West to hide from his past. That past has caught up with him, and taken another limb for his trouble.

He can’t even lay claim to being a man. He’s the furthest thing from whole, half his body now gone in service of kith and country. He cannot even stand on his own; like as not, he’ll never be able to again.

He dreams that first night on the train between Atlas and Beacon of death and blood on the battlefield, of the cloying scent of antiseptic and blood, of scars, especially the invisible kind that mar his mind rather than his body. The ones that cut far deeper than any surgeon’s scalpel ever safely could, between his ribs and inside the roiling confines of his guts.

Those hurt more than the missing body, but they still let him walk.

It’s a toss up which ones are worse.

James is something new that first day he rolls down the plank out of the train and into Beacon, Weiss’ hands on his shoulders, and looks at the town. It’s been some months since the fire, but buildings still lean worryingly side-to-side. More than one have been abandoned, scared owners leaving for greener pastures after losing their livelihoods.

“Wow,” Weiss says, hoisting her bag higher up on her shoulder, staring around at the collapsed clapboard houses and the charred timbers, “This place is a fucking dump.”

Typical.

 

 

They roll into Yang’s bar, and Ruby practically lifts off of the counter when Weiss pushes James over the bump at the threshold with a grunt. “Weiss!” The girl shrieks in delight, coming over and nearly tackling Weiss off of her feet with a hug, her face pressed into Weiss’ thick hair. “You came!”

“Of course I came,” Weiss mumbles, struggling under her weight. Ruby slips down to the ground as James rolls himself around the girls, his good arm straining to move the chair with his weight. “I had to get the Gen—D—Mr. Ironwood here, didn’t I?” James shakes his head, glances back at her.

“Don’t turn this into some huge sacrifice, Weiss. I heard you gushing to Winter about getting to see Ruby.” Her skin is so pale that when she flushes it reaches her eyebrows. He doesn’t feel much chagrined. He doesn’t look more at them, though—he looks to Yang.

She stares back at him. Her chin juts out, and she looks angry. “Come to gawk?” She says after a moment, and he lifts his missing leg up off of the bottom of the chair, waving around the leg of his trousers that’s knotted up below his knee.

“I could say the same to you.” James replies at last, humour colouring his voice. She stops bristling quite as much. “Where’s your uncle?”

“Out with Ozpin. I dunno, doing something. They should be back tonight.” It’s stilted for a moment, before he gets to why he really came.

“May I take a look at your arm?” Yang watches him, carefully. She’s healed from it well, he can tell. She doesn’t have the tell-tale drawn expression of someone crippled by indecision and disability alike; she’s still working. Still, at this moment, washing a cup one-handed, leaning it on the counter to wipe it out.

“You know there _are_ doctors here. Good ones. I’ve seen them.”

“I know.” James shrugs a shoulder. “I’m not here to treat you.” He hesitates, and then, “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says, watching her expressive face. “For Washington. When I lost my arm during the War, an inventor back East made me my current prosthetic. I’m going to go see if he can also make me a leg. I was going to ask, if you don’t mind, to see if he’ll make you a prosthetic arm too. But for that, I need your measurements.” She’s still staring at him, and he’s not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.

“What,” she says at last, staring not at him, but at his arm—at his right shoulder, where the prosthetic is strapped on, “Like the one you’ve got?” He can’t raise it all that far, his shoulder cut too high, but he can a bit, and he waves it. “Is it heavy?”

“Not too much. Yours would probably be a bit easier to use, since you still have most of your arm. Mine’s awkward because I have so little shoulder left for it.” She’s still staring. “It doesn’t have to be out here in public,” James continues, a little awkwardly, “And only if you want to.”

“No,” Yang replies, suddenly and sharply. “No,” she quiets, and then, “I want you to.”

Which is how James ends up sitting on the front porch of the bar, waiting for the sun to set, carefully measuring and noting down all the parts of Yang’s arm he can think to measure. The full length of her remaining one, the full length of elbow to fingertip, the width of her palm. Minute details, recorded in every tiny nuance. He weighs her arm, her hand, her fingers. He checks how far it can naturally move.

She remains stoic throughout, just staring at him. “Did they do this to you, too?” She asks, and he nods, pencil clamped between his teeth. “Did it feel weird?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, as he measures over her stump now, how far down from her shoulder it is, how wide across. “I don’t really remember. I was still on laudanum most of the time when they brought me in. My amputation was a lot more traumatic than yours was.”

“ _More?_ ” Yang snorts. “You finished cleaning up my cut-off arm with a cavalry sabre!” James glances up at her, a half-smile on his face.

“They had to take mine off four times before they had it high enough.” She blanches, suddenly. “I don’t deny it was the right thing to do. They’d hoped to save me some of the arm, I suppose. In the end, they had to just take the whole thing.” Yang is staring at him. “I would have tried to do the same,” James continues, noting down the circumference of her bicep. “It’s not easy, being a one armed man. That’s why they left me the leg. It’s even harder with half your body gone.”

Not that it had mattered. James lost the leg, when all was said and done. Or at least half of it.

When he’s done, he leans away from Yang, lets her take both her arms back. “I’ll write you out a list of things to do to help get the mobility back and let the phantom pains go away,” he tells the girl, putting his notepad away into the pocket of his coat. “They never stop completely, but you can still exercise the limb, even after it’s gone. If I’m able to get a prosthetic made for you, I’ll write back to let you know before I send it.”

“ _Send_ it?” Yang splutters, standing up and staring at him.

It’s strange, to be so much further down from everyone else. James is used to towering over everyone he meets, looking down his nose unintentionally. Now he hardly comes up to anybody’s chest.

It’s strange.

“You’re gonna just—send me back a fake arm, not even come put it on me?” She’s glaring at him, he realises. She’s _angry_. “So what, are you planning on never coming back out to Montana? You’re just going to go back to Washington and hide out with all the white men there? Had enough of playing hero?”

He doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last, when the silence begins to wear thin. “It’s not really my decision to make, Yang. If I can’t get mobility back with a prosthetic, I’ll be confined to a chair the rest of my life. I can’t ride a horse like that.”

“It’s bullshit,” she says, and James wonders suddenly if _that’s_ where Weiss learned to swear like she had earlier. Perhaps it runs in Qrow’s family, although he can’t really imagine Ruby speaking filth. She’s a good girl. Yang leans forward then, and jabs him just over the sternum with her index finger. “You had _better_ come back,” she snaps, angry. “You had better come back out here and fix all this, you hear? You don’t just get to—run away—and pretend like it’s all fine!”

James stares at her. She’s panting, an angry flush high on her cheeks. She’s _shaking_.

“If you leave, and never come back,” Yang murmurs, “Then I’ll just—“

“James,” Qrow says suddenly, and James and Yang both turn to look at him. He’s standing in the street, jacket slung over his shoulder, hand on his hip. Ozpin is with him, lighting a cigarette—his arm finally out of the sling. He glances up from under the brim of his hat, his eyes twinkling. “What,” Qrow continues, watching James’ face for something, “Is all this about leaving?”

 

 

The following conversation they have is not a pretty one.

Qrow yells a lot, and James lets him. They do it in the quiet of the guest bedroom in Oz and Glynda’s house, which has been rebuilt, where Qrow is staying right now. Qrow at least waited to start the fight until he’d helped James climb the stairs to the second floor, so they could do it properly, in private.

“After all that,” the other man snarls at last, heated, heartbroken, “You’re just going to leave, now, and never come back?”

“I don’t exactly have much of a choice,” James shoots back. “I can’t stand, I can’t use crutches or canes. Would you have me hop everywhere?” Qrow snaps his jaw shut, flushed, embarrassed and angry. “I’m no happier than any of you that I might have to go spend the rest of my life in that empty house where my daughter died, Qrow.” He can tell Qrow is biting his tongue.

He sighs.

“Look,” James mutters at last, more than a little hurt, “I don’t need you and everyone else thinking I’m the same person I was, because I’m not. But I don’t need you treating me like I’ll break at the slightest breath of air, either. It’s just a leg, Qrow. I just can’t ride a horse without it.”

“Fine,” Qrow growls out. “Whatever.”

They pause in an awkward sort of silence, and James remembers the visceral, needy way that Qrow had grabbed him and kissed him, the night they’d saved Ruby. The look on his face when they’d been tangled up together in the forest. The _want_ , the wanting _something_ that had hidden just behind his eyes.

It’s all a little pointless and gone now. He sighs, stands, and wobbles badly, leaning his good arm on the wall to stay upright. “I can see there’s no point to keeping going with this argument,” he says, not able to look at Qrow as he speaks.

“That’s not—“ Qrow sputters, steps forward, hauls James around so quickly he almost topples completely sideways, grabs him by the shoulders, and kisses him.

For a long moment, James just stands there. He’s, once again, too flabbergasted to move, but he does finally get his good hand onto the back of Qrow’s neck. “I’m not leaving because of you,” he says at last, when they break apart, “Or because of _this_. I’m leaving because I want to be able to...”

It is almost too much to put into words.

“To what?” Qrow snaps back, his dark skin flushed. His teeth are bared. “To try and be normal?”

“Not that either.” James presses their foreheads together. “I’m leaving because being with you made me want to keep up with someone again, and that someone is you. I can’t ride or walk at your side if I can’t damn _walk_ , Qrow. I’m not trying to be selfish, I’m trying to be _good enough_.” He looks as taken-aback by those words as James himself felt putting them to truth on his tongue, and Qrow hesitates, unmoving, for a moment, before he helps James sink down to the bed, holds his flesh and blood hand tight.

“That’s...a little different,” he admits at last. “But still. Why do you keep talking like you’ll never come back?”

“Because if I can’t at least ride on my own, I’ll not be able to make the journey by myself. And if I can’t do that by myself, it’s probably for the best I stay back east.” As much as he hates to lay ownership to it, it’s a fact. The West, all wild roughlands, isn’t the place for a cripple. Every building is up on steps, every shopfront he can’t reach by himself.

“That’s stupid,” Qrow says instead, and kisses him again.

James doesn’t have anywhere to be.

Ruby, Yang, and Weiss are safely at the bar, eating together, doing whatever it is that teenage girls do. Ozpin had taken one look at him and Qrow saying “We need to talk,” and had practically hightailed it, sweeping off with Glynda to go do something.

They have the house to themselves. No-one is around.

So James, for once in his damn fool life, stops thinking or guilting himself for even just a moment, pulls Qrow closer, and _kisses him_.

 

 

“It’s messy,” James warns when Qrow helps him sit up to pull his trousers off. “It’s still not fully healed.”

“I know,” Qrow grouches, tugging his suspenders free of his slacks, pulling them down and over his knee and ankle. “I saw them amputate it, remember?”

James doesn’t, actually, remember, but he can believe that. “I hope it wasn’t too much. You were pretty concussed.”

“I wouldn’t leave your side,” Qrow admits, pausing as he sets his hand on James’ thigh, just above the amputation scar. It’s red and swollen and ugly, as it will be for a few more months at least. It didn’t infect, luckily, it’s just sore and aching. He trails his fingers over the raised stitches, looks up at James. “If you died, I didn’t want to feel like I hadn’t done anything.” And James could have easily died. All too easily.

He sighs, leans up on his good leg slightly as he unbuttons his shirt, and Qrow leans with him, slides into his lap, and somewhere James loses track of what they’re still wearing, loses track of everything except what Qrow feels like against him. He’s all lean and wiry muscle, coarse dark hair peppering his chest and thighs, and his ass is so tight James is pretty sure he could bounce a penny off of it.

He’s unsurprisingly grabby, long fingers in James’ hair, on his shoulders, down his chest. He traces every scar James has—and he has many—with his hands and his mouth. He spends agonising minutes labouring over the ugly mess of scar tissue and pitted bone that’s James’ right hip and thigh, and when he’s done, shoves James unceremoniously back onto the bed, slides onto his thighs, and bumps his ass against his dick.

Qrow says something then that James doesn’t understand, but he can get the gist of cursing when he hears it. “What is your cock,” he breathes, reaching back to feel it. “It’s like, the size of my forearm.”

“Is it really that big?” James feels a little bit dizzy as he says it. He’s still recovering from all the blood he lost, and that much blood _not_ at his brain has him thinking the opposite of clearly.

“Yeah,” Qrow croaks. “There’s no way I’m gonna be able to sit on that thing.” He sounds pretty disappointed, but he shifts around until their cocks bump together instead, and gets James’ good hand around both of them, his other hand making up the slack.

It’s the first time James has had sex since before the War.

It feels fantastic, and it’s over before he even really knows it’s started, the both of them kissing desperately, until James throbs, hard, and comes biting on Qrow’s lower lip, moaning into his mouth, and finishes stroking the other man the rest of the way off just to hear him lose English and fall into his native tongue.

It’s disgustingly attractive, with his greying hair plastered down over his brow and his face a rictus of arousal, begging and pleading in a language in which James doesn’t know a word, and he tugs sharply on the head of the other man’s cock to make him come, Qrow shaking apart over him.

They wipe up with Qrow’s shirt because, in his own words, he “Doesn’t give a shit,” and then talk late into the night. They barely fit in the tiny bed, but Qrow weighs almost nothing at all, so narrow that if he still had both hands James could reach around his entire waist, and him laying on his chest isn’t so bad.

They don’t fall asleep until very late.

It’s a good last night.

 

 

Qrow helps him dress in the morning, and it truly does take both of them. James bathes his face and neck in the washbasin, tries to look more himself, and gives the other man one last kiss before they leave.

Weiss joins them, along with Ozpin and Yang, to see him off at the station.

“I’ll write once I get to Washington,” he tells them, hugging Weiss goodbye. “Let you all know what they think my prognosis is.”

“Oh, I very much doubt you’ll be anything but fine.” Oz tips his hat back. “You’re a stubborn one, if you don’t mind my saying it.” James doesn’t deny it, because it’s true. “We’ll expect you in a year or so. Don’t keep us all waiting.”

“You can all come East, you know,” James points out, as they finish loading his luggage onto the train.

“Not me,” Qrow points out. “I’m wanted for hanging in, what, five territories?” He looks to Ozpin, who pauses, nods. “Five territories. So, no thanks. I’ll sit it out.”

It’s the last thing they say to him before he goes, and in the dawn light, James leaves Beacon.

He is going home.

 

 

There is something about _home_ , that big old white house that still smells just-ever-so-faintly of Penny, that reminds James that he’s been through this before, and he’ll go through it again. He’ll be fine. Or, at the end of the day, at least a rough semblance of such.

He is not unsalvageable, he has not failed utterly. He can apologise to Penny’s ghost, but those two dead girls can do nothing to him from death but weigh upon his soul. He is not made of sin—he is made of the acute realisation of failure, of old war-wounds, of love, of grief. He is not Doctor, or General, or bounty-hunter. He is not cripple, or killer, or friend.

He is simply himself, nothing more. Nothing less.

As soon as he is well enough to, James sells the house. Finally—properly—rewrites his Last Will and Testament. It feels strange, to put down Winter’s name-that-is-not-hers, but she’ll need it. He won’t risk his death happening again.

James slowly, painstakingly, sorts through the detritus of his old life. Throws things out. Sells others. Builds himself a new life, one that he can carry with him. After four months, mails Yang a new arm, lighter than his own prosthesis, and in return gets a seven-page letter from Ruby that talks at length about nothing and everything, chatty, pleased. She never touches on Yang’s arm, but he gets the understanding from her words that her sister is happy with it, and it’s working. He sent it with plenty of instructions on how to get used to it, and he privately hopes to see her in action with it soon.

It’s two months later that he gets another letter from Ruby, one that chills him deeply, down to the bone. This one is short and succinct. This one just lays it bare before him.

 _Mr. Ironwood,_ it says, in Weiss’ clear handwriting, because Ruby can neither read nor write, _I didn’t mention it in my last letter, but Uncle Qrow went back to the tribes a few months past. He said he’d be back...but he hasn’t come. We aren’t sure what happened to him._

_We got a letter from Yang’s mom a few days ago, told us not to worry. Said he’d had a change of heart about being with the people. We are worried. We don’t know what to do._

_Ozpin is asking around, but nobody will say anything to him._

_Come back soon._

_—Ruby_

 

 

It’s a year almost to the day that James, cane in his good hand, climbs back off of the train in Beacon. The city looks much better now—it’s grown—and he wanders the streets for a time, enjoying the chance to stretch his legs. The dirt cart-trails make it a little awkward for him to keep his balance, but that’s what his cane is for. It’s nice, to see the town rebuilding, to see them recovering from their losses.

At length, he comes to the bar. Stops in to see the girls. There are a few tears, here and there, and he sees how well and easily Yang is using her arm, tells her she owes him nothing. It was a gift, and he won’t let her pay him back.

He writes down where they last knew Qrow was.

Before he leaves, James goes to the Marshall’s house, and finds Ozpin is out. “It’s good to see you doing so well,” Glynda says, holding him at arm’s length. In her heels, she’s as tall as he is. “I’m afraid Oz won’t be back for some days. He’s out dealing with some robberies.”

“That’s all right,” James replies. “I can leave him a note.” Glynda is watching him, her green eyes alight with something very close to _suspicion._ “I’m leaving for Atlas on the evening train to pass some things on to Winter and get my horse back.”

“James,” Glynda says, as cutting as a well-sharpened scalpel, “Are you going after him?” She doesn’t have to clarify who she means; they both know.

He just smiles at her. Hands her his letter. “I’ll see you sometime, Glynda. Give Oz my regards.”

 

 

When he gets to Atlas, Winter is waiting for him. They have a quiet dinner in the house, and afterward, he solemnly hands her the things he’s brought. His Will, written out to her.  She doesn’t say anything as he passes over other things—things from her and Weiss’ childhoods, from their father.

When he’s done, and he lays down to sleep on the camp bed she’s brought downstairs for him, Winter stares at him for a long time. “What are you doing back out here?” She asks, and he doesn’t answer. She knows, of course. They both know.

“Get some rest, Winter,” he tells her instead. She storms out without putting out the lamp.

In the morning, he packs, lightly. Cleans his tack, saddles his horse. It’s his first time back in the saddle since before he lost his leg, and he knows he won’t take to it easy. New muscles have to be used, old ones don’t work the same. His balance is still a little off. He’ll have to strap his bad leg in, since the foot that rests in the stirrup is a false one.

Winter and Weiss come out together to see him off, and he hugs both the girls before he goes. Winter is wrapped in a thick houserobe, and stares at him balefully. She has stubble coming in on her chin and upper lip, unshaven in the morning light. “What did I tell you?” She asks, shaking her head, her braid slipping over her shoulder, “About wild goose chases and getting shot.” Rather than reply right away, James hefts himself up off of the step of the front porch, hauling himself into the saddle with his good arm and leg, muscles straining as he balances back out. It’s awkward; he’s been away too long. He’ll have saddle sores, and his knee will ache. That’s all right.

James adjusts his hat briefly, makes sure all his saddlebags are strapped in, checks his rifle, loaded and at hand. He picks up his reins.

“That’s all right,” he says at last, watching the clouds in the sky. In the distance, the early morning Montana sun is casting long pine-needle shadows over the plains. In the distance, the mountains are a purple blush across the curve of the open horizon, a note of the escaping night against the light of the sky.

James watches the clouds scud past.

“I’ve always wanted to go looking for someone, just to look.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset is bright in the badlands of Montana, and purples, reds, and orange ochers are streaking the sky like the petals of a thousand indian paintbrushes, the clouds glowing bronze and silver. On the far horizon, dusk is just settling, the shadowy echoes of the night in the distant east creeping inch by inch towards the mountains.

“Nice weather,” Qrow says, shaking out his match as he finishes lighting his cigarette. His long, grey hair whips around his face, his ponytail kicked up by the wind, and he cinches the tie of his hatstring tighter, tosses the match into the dirt.

James takes a long sip from his canteen. Caps it, slings it back from his saddle.

“I feel like ominous fog would be a little more fitting,” he replies, leaning on his good elbow, scratching his beard. “Come out of the mist like ghosts.”

“A streak of drama in you, Jimmy?” James kicks Qrow’s leg with his good foot. “Ow, okay, I get it.” They pick up their reins, and trot into town.

In fifteen years, Beacon has grown. There’s no sign of the fire any more, and the streets are actually properly cobbled now. Carts and carriages rumble past. There’s a train station with more than just a wood porch, even a school. They walk their horses slowly into town, side-by-side, and stop when they come to the Marshall’s house.

Someone’s painted it properly green. “Disgusting,” Qrow says, with no heat in his voice, as he slides down off of his horse, landing with a clank of spurs and a puff of road dust off of his clothes. They both badly need a proper bath and not to just jump in a stream; both of them need to scrub their clothes out. James unstraps his bad leg, and Qrow helps him down off of his saddle.

He almost topples over, but balances again, and picks up his cane from his saddle. Together, they walk into the Marshall’s office.

“I didn’t know a man past sixty could even be Marshall,” James says, leaning against the doorframe. The man sitting in the chair there is wearing an all-green suit, his hat tilted forward over his face, tinted glasses lopsided on his nose. He, slowly, pushes his hat brim back, and looks up at them, narrow-eyed.

“I’ve got a few more years before I break sixty,” he says.

The Marshall in Beacon smiles too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big thanks to james/thetealord for betaing this last chapter bc i swapped tenses and povs so much like 90% of this was in present second for some reason? good lord
> 
> and a HUGE shout out to anipendragon, who is literally. the only reason this chapter even exists. my inspiration had totally eaten shit but their comments and excitement even third-hand about this ship was so infections i finally got up off my ass and finished it. i hope this was worth the wait?
> 
> check me out on tumblr and twitter @jonphaedrus!


End file.
